


The Hunter's Daughter

by HunterPuff



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean x Daughter, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-03-31 18:18:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 41,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13980735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HunterPuff/pseuds/HunterPuff
Summary: She is a sixteen year old girl, who was raised in the life of a hunter by her father, Bobby Singer. Her life has never been what you could call normal, but it has been fairly simple and uncomplicated. Following her father’s death, she gets the shock of her life when she finds out that a big secret has been kept from her her whole life.





	1. Chapter One

The day hunters gathered to wish their final farewells to Bobby Singer was cold and damp, with heavy grey clouds hanging low in the sky echoing the moods of all who were gathered at his house. The body was gone by now, the burning had been done privately at the request of his 16-year-old daughter, Harley. She hadn’t wanted a large audience for that, so she had arranged for it to be just herself and the Winchester brothers; and the only reason she had been willing to include them was because of how close they were to her father and to her. They’d been around for as long as she could remember, to the point that they were just as much family to her as her dad was. 

 

While Harley had wanted the body burning to be a private affair, she was also realistic as to how much her dad was revered in the hunting community. Pretty much everyone who was anyone knew Bobby Singer and had a deep seated respect for the man, so she knew there was no way she could get away without a memorial of some sort in his honor. After discussing it at length with both Sam and Dean, because as much as she hated to admit it she couldn’t do this by herself, the three of them had decided that instead of doing something formal they would just put the word out that on a specific day anyone who wanted to pay their respects to Bobby could stop by his house, where there would be plenty of food and free flowing alcohol for all. 

 

When the day had finally arrived, Harley sat in the living room as an endless stream of hunters came through to pay their respects to her father as well as to check on her. Many of them she knew already. Garth was there of course, and Jody had come in and ended up spending the night before at the house with her. But there were so many faces that she didn't recognize. Men and women who she'd never met, more lives her father had touched than she had ever realized. It had become a little overwhelming after awhile, all of these people coming into her house and telling her how sorry they were for her loss and telling story after story about her father and what a great man he had been; sometimes she felt as if a huge weight was pressing down on her chest and she couldn’t breathe as the reality of the day sank in. More than once she’d felt the hands of someone she knew gently guiding her out of the house to get some fresh air when they could tell it was getting to be too much for her. 

 

Sometime later that night, after the food and drinks were all gone and all of the extra people had trickled out of the house, Harley had retreated to her bedroom to try and recuperate from the long day. She was sitting at the head of her bed, back pressed against the cool wall and her knees pulled tight against her chest as she sat and stared at the wind moving through the trees beyond the window. In other parts of the house she could hear people shuffling around, chairs scraping on the floors, and muffled but urgent conversations wafting upstairs to her room, but she was trying to block it all out.  Now that all of the formalities were out of the way, the reality of her situation was starting to sink in. Her dad was dead and…where did that leave her? She had never known her mother, didn’t even know her name, all Harley had ever been told was that her mother had died when Harley was a baby and her father had raised her on his own. She had no grandparents, at least none that she was aware of, and there were no aunts or uncles. She assumed her father had made some sort of arrangements for what was to happen to her if he ever died, after all hunters didn’t tend to have long life spans, but she wasn’t sure what they were. As far as she knew she was currently an orphan with no place to go, possibly destined to be a ward of the state, sentenced to get lost in the foster care system until she aged out in two years. 

 

A soft knock sounded at the door, followed by the squeaking of door hinges indicating that someone was coming into the room. Harley slowly turned her head toward the door and saw Dean standing there, his tall and broad frame nearly eclipsing the faint glow of the hall light behind him. His beautiful face seemed haloed in light, and it just served to emphasize the grave look on his face.  He waited for Harley to wave him into the room before he walked over and tentatively sat on the edge of her bed. There was a bit of an awkward silence in the air for a few minutes as he studied her face, trying to think of the right words to say to her right now. “How are you doing, kiddo? I know it’s been a long day.”

 

Harley shrugged her shoulders as she laid her chin on her knees and looked over at the older man. Part of her wondered if she would ever see him again, once she got put into the system. Now that her dad wasn’t around she figured the brothers would have no use for a kid like her in their lives, they were always busy and wouldn’t exactly have time to drop by and say hello just because. Plus, there was the fact that she wasn’t sure if foster homes even allowed people from your past to come visit, especially when they weren’t related to you. The thought of never seeing Sam or Dean again gave her an aching twinge in her chest and she could feel unshed tears burning at the back of her eyes at the thought. They were the last real links she had to her father and she wasn’t sure she was ready to lose that. “I’m…I don’t know. It’s finally starting to sink in, ya know? My dad is gone and I’m alone. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, now. Probably gonna end up in foster care or something…and that’s if I’m lucky and don’t wind up in some group home for teens.”

 

“Harley, about that…we need to talk.” 

 

She cocked her head as she watched Dean shift uncomfortably on the bed. For as long as she’d known the man, which was basically her entire life, she couldn’t remember ever seeing him quite so nervous or unsure of himself, and now his entire demeanor was making her worried. “What’s going on, Dean? Do you know something? Are they here for me now?”

 

“No. No, sweetheart, it’s nothing like that. It’s just…” He took in a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. Whatever was coming it had to be bad for him to be acting like this and Harley found herself thinking of a million different worst case scenarios the longer she was kept in the dark. “There are some things you need to know, Harley, and they aren’t going to be easy for you to hear. I’m going to need you to remember something. You were the single most important person in Bobby’s life. He loved you as much as anyone could. Just don’t forget that, okay?”

 

“Dean…what’s going on? You’re starting to scare me. Just…tell me, please?”

 

“Harley…you’ve been Bobby’s little girl since you were just a baby. He was a good man and was a good dad to you, he raised you better than anyone else could have in this life. But, the thing is…he may have been your guardian and he will always, ALWAYS be your dad, but biologically he wasn’t your father.” Taking in a deep breath Dean looked up at Harley and looked her in the eyes, studying her face intently as he dropped a bomb on her. “I am.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A flashback, to when Dean found out he was going to become a father.

_ A 17-year-old Dean Winchester sat in the front of his father’s car, staring straight ahead at the road in front of him. He didn’t dare to look over at John, because he knew the older man was seething at the moment. If there was one thing that John Winchester hated more than anything, it was wasting precious time that could have been spent on a hunt, and this particular distraction was worse than others. Had it been up to Dean, John never would have found out about any of this, the entire thing would have stayed a secret and become some forgotten nightmare. But, of course, fate liked to fuck with Dean and had made sure that there had been no way for the boy to escape his mistakes. It wasn’t like Dean had meant for any of this to happen. Hell, this was the last thing on Earth that he’d wanted to deal with. But, nobody had ever accused Dean of being smart. He’d fucked up and now here he was in the middle of the biggest mess he’d ever made, with no clear way of how to fix it.  _

 

_ It had all started four months before, when John had been called in as back up by an acquaintance he had made throughout his years of hunting. The other hunter, Dale, worked with his wife Marie and their teenage daughter Katie. They’d run into a case that was a little bigger than they could handle on their own and Dale had put out word that he needed some help. The Winchesters happened to be in a town only about an hour or so away, so John had agreed to come help out the best he could. Not sure how much manpower might be needed he had dragged Dean along with him, while Sam stayed behind in the hotel room they’d been staying in for the past couple of months.  _

 

_ Once John and Dean had arrived and started working the case with the other family they’d realized that not only did they have vampires on their hands, but a nest of them bigger and stronger than any of them had anticipated or had ever encountered before. After much debate, and a lot of arguing from the younger hunters, the adults had decided that the situation was too dangerous for Dean or Katie to be involved in. Another call was put out to bring in more experienced hunters and two nights later found the adults heading out to deal with the vamp nest while the teenagers were left to themselves in the hotel room.  _

 

_ Everyone involved thought it was an ideal arrangement, that there was no possible way the two teens would be in danger or could get themselves into any trouble. They were both experienced and well trained hunters and, though Dean was a bit of a wild card, Katie was a good girl. She was straight laced, a straight A student, never causing problems for her parents or getting into any trouble. At least, that was the persona she put on for her parents. Neither of them realized that their shy little girl who always kept to herself had a bit of a wild streak to her and leaving her alone with Dean Winchester was like mixing fire and gasoline. A couple of bottles of vodka stolen from a convenience store up the street and a few hours alone had been all the pair had needed to make stupid choices of epic proportions.  _

 

_ A month and a half later Dean had answered a call on his cell phone, never expecting to hear Katie’s voice on the other end, let alone to hear her utter the words ‘I’m pregnant’ as soon as he had answered the phone. Two seconds, that was approximately all the longer it took for the words to be said. Two seconds and Dean felt his heart drop into his stomach. Two seconds for his entire world to come crumbling down around him. There was no way he could be a father, he was too damned young and had no idea what the hell he was doing...and God knew he wasn’t having a shining example of fatherhood being set for him. He didn’t know much, but Dean was pretty sure that the way he had been raised was not the way a child was suppose to be raised and he knew damned well it wasn’t the way he would choose for HIS child to be raised.   _

 

_ That first phone conversation about what came to be known as ‘our little problem’ had been full of panic on both of their parts. Neither Dean nor Katie knew what to do or how to handle the situation. A teenage pregnancy was never good in the best and most normal of circumstances, and neither of them exactly lead what could be known as a normal life. Both of them knew what it was like to be raised in the life of a hunter, without any kind of normalcy to balance things out, and the one thing they could both agree on was that neither one wanted to raise a child the way they’d been raised especially as young as they both were. That was the only thing they could agree on and the only conclusion they could come to in that first conversation. Neither one could come up with a plan on how to keep from bringing a child into their lives and, more importantly, how to keep their parents from finding out. _

 

_ Over the next several weeks, several frantic and whispered phone calls were made as the teens tried to find a reasonable and viable solution to their problem. They had discussed, debated, and argued over every possible answer to the situation that they could think of and all they could seem to figure out was that they were both stupid and the entire thing sucked, no matter what they decided to do it was going to be hard and it was going to blow. Finally, a month and a half after Dean had gotten the life changing phone call, they’d decided on a course of action. Katie had heard of a clinic in the area her and her parents were currently staying in that she wouldn’t need her parents permission to go to and wouldn’t cost much. A little bit of money and half an hour on a doctor’s table and the whole thing would be taken care of. Both of them could go on with their lives and pretend none of this could ever happen. _

 

_ The night before Katie was supposed to go to the clinic was the night that everything fell apart and blew up in both of their faces. Dean and Sam had been sitting at the table in the motel room of the month working on their homework when the room door had slammed open and John came storming in, rage written all over his face. Both boys had looked up at him, eyes wide with a mixture of fear and shock, but before either of them could say a word, John had come over and grabbed his eldest son and tore him away from the table only to slam his back up against the wall. “Did you get Katie Wilson knocked up?” _

 

_ Dean’s eyes had gone wide, not sure of how to answer. Obviously his dad knew the truth, or at least he had an idea, but that didn’t mean Dean wanted to offer up undeniable proof to him. John was already angry enough that Dean didn’t want to set him off even more. Though, realistically, there was no way any of this was going to end well. “Dad, I...what makes you think…?” _

 

_ “Don’t play dumb with me, boy. I just got a call from Dale Wilson. He found an appointment card on the floor in his hotel room for some clinic over there, with his daughter’s name on it. She was supposed to go there tomorrow after school. A little search of her things and he found an awful lot of phone calls to you on her cell phone over the past few months. Care to tell me why that is?” _

 

_ Sam had been sitting at the table the whole time, watching the entire scene unfold before him in wide eyed terror. He had seen his brother and his father get into some serious arguments before, but he knew instinctively that this one was worse than the others. After he heard everything his dad had to say to his older brother, he had looked over at Dean with a mixture of confusion and disappointment in his eyes. He had always looked up to his big brother and what he had just heard was so far from the pedestal he’d put Dean on that he wasn’t sure how to take it. “Dean?” _

 

_ “Sammy, why don’t you...go for a walk or something? There’s some money in my bookbag. Go...get yourself some soda or something.” Hearing the sound of his younger brother’s voice, Dean had looked over at Sam and tried to shoo him out of the room. The last thing he needed was for the younger boy to be brought into the middle of this, it was already enough of a mess at it was. Sam, however, refused to budge and Dean groaned inwardly when he realized he was going to have to admit to his biggest mistake to date in front of his baby brother. Shaking his head a little he turned back to John and stared his dad in the eye, trying to look more confident than he felt. “Yeah, dad, she’s pregnant. And yeah, it’s mine. But it’s nothing you need to worry about. We’re dealing with it, after tomorrow it won’t be a problem anymore.” _

 

_ “Wrong. Unfortunately for the two of you, Katie’s mother doesn’t believe in dealing with this type of problem that way. My idiot of a son had to go and get the one hunter knocked up who’s family is still religious. So she won’t be going anywhere tomorrow and your little problem isn’t going to be going away any time soon. Now we have to take the time and go talk to the Wilsons. Figure out how to clean up your damned mess that you’ve gotten your fool ass into.” _

 

_ That conversation had been two weeks ago and Dean was fairly certain that he and his dad hadn’t spoken more than a few words here and there ever since. Now, the day had finally come to go meet with Katie and her parents to try and come up with a plan for the child she was carrying. Dean was a nervous wreck and being stuck in a car with John wasn’t helping the situation any. He had no idea what the final game plan was going to be, but one thing he knew for certain...his entire life was about to change. _

 

_ The decision had been made, with very little input from him, that Dean Winchester was going to be a father whether he liked it or not. The entire thought terrified him. What the hell did he know about being anyone’s father? His entire childhood had been growing up in the back of his dad’s car or in a motel room, he didn’t have the slightest clue how to take care of a baby or how to raise a child. Hell, to get technical he was still a kid himself.  _

 

_ In the months leading up to the birth of his child, Dean did everything he could think of to help Katie get ready. Anywhere they happened to be for a case, he picked up as many odd jobs as he could and would split the money between helping his dad and sending it back to Katie. He tried to get to see her at least once a month, and even managed to go to a doctor’s appointment or two with her. Nothing he did felt like enough, though. He knew that her parents looked at him as some kind of teenage slacker, getting their ‘innocent’ daughter pregnant and then presumably leaving her to deal with it on her own. John barely spoke to him anymore; Dean knew he resented the distraction that a baby was placing on all of them, and he knew this wasn’t going to be some happy ending where his dad would see his grandchild for the first time and fall instantly in love.  _

 

_ The worst reaction however, in Dean’s eyes at least, was from his little brother. Up until now Dean had always been a hero, damned near a god, in Sammy’s eyes. Now the only thing in Sam’s eyes when he looked at his big brother was disappointment. Dean had made a mistake; proven that he was mortal. He could deal with taking shit from anyone else, but knowing he let down his baby brother hurt more than anything else and was possibly Dean’s biggest failure to date.  _

 

_ As the date drew closer for the baby’s arrival, plans were set in motion to ensure that Dean would be around for the birth as well as to help out in the days following. For the two weeks prior to Katie’s due date, the Winchesters would stay in a motel local to Katie and her family and would only go on cases that were no more than half an hour’s drive away at most. John was annoyed, of course, because he knew there were cases farther away that he would be well suited for; but then again, most everything related to Dean or the baby annoyed him anymore. Dean had learned not to mention the pregnancy or the baby, because it would only set his dad off, making the already stressful situation even more so.  _

 

_ The flaw in the plan came a week and a half before they were set to move to their temporary residence. Dean was two and half states away, eyeballs deep in a hunt with his dad, when he got a frantic call from Katie that her water had broken; three and a half weeks before her due date. It had taken a lot of begging and pleading on Dean’s part in order for John to agree to leave the hunt early; even trying to appeal to the fact that his grandchild was being born didn’t sway the older man. Not until Dean assured him that he didn’t have to stay, that he could just drop his son off at the hospital and leave, did John finally agree. _

 

_ The several hour drive across multiple states was long and tense. Nobody in the car said a word and the only sound was the occasional ping from Dean’s cell phone as he received frequent updates from Katie’s parents to fill him in on the progression of her labor. It wasn’t going well, Katie was in a lot of pain and starting to have complications and the baby was beginning to show signs of distress. If something didn’t change, soon, there was a chance that an emergency C-section would have to be performed.   _

 

_ After nine hours overnight of being stuck in a car with his father and younger brother, with zero sleep to show for it, Dean found himself running through a hospital to find the maternity ward. John had dropped him at the front door and then he and Sam had taken off back to the hunt they’d left behind, without so much as a glance in the rearview mirror as they pulled out of the parking lot. Dean didn’t have the time to think on it as he was too worried about getting to Katie’s side. When he finally found the maternity ward and came scrambling down the hall, Katie’s parents were standing in the hallway and Dean nearly broke into a sprint as he tried to get to them. _

 

_ “Mr. Wilson! Mrs. Wilson! Where is she? Is she okay? The baby…?” _

 

_ Katie’s mother turned towards him at the sound of his voice and when Dean saw her red rimmed eyes, he could feel his heart drop into his stomach. Something wasn’t right, something had happened, he knew it instantly. He just didn’t know how bad it really was until the older woman opened her mouth to speak. “Dean. The baby, she’s fine, you have a daughter. But Katie...there were so many complications. They did everything they could for her, but...she’s gone, Dean. My baby girl is gone.” _

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean has a chat with Jody about the truth of Harley’s parentage, Jody then serves as a middleman and has some girl talk with Harley.

It had been two hours since Dean had dropped the biggest bombshell in Harley’s life on her. Two hours since she had stared at him in silent horror. Two hours since she had launched herself at him and pushed him off of her bed, telling him to get the hell out of her room and leave her alone. Dean was sitting at the kitchen table, a few empty beer bottles next to him, with his face buried in his hands. He hadn’t expected it to go well, there was no way Harley was going to have an easy time accepting or understanding that the man who had raised her wasn’t actually her father, but he’d never anticipated it going quite so badly, either. The timing was off, of course, the kid had already been through enough recently without having a truth bomb dropped on her like that, but there had been no way around it. Now that Bobby was gone, with Harley being a minor she had to be told the truth because as her father, Dean was now her legal guardian. Truthfully he had been all along, they had just always been good at skirting around the technicalities of the law. A combination of fake IDs of Bobby’s picture with Dean’s name, Dean signing any legal paperwork when he had to, and Bobby getting really good at forging Dean’s signature...it had all been a lot easier than any of them had expected.

The light shuffling of footsteps had Dean whipping his head around to look, hoping that Harley had finally ventured downstairs to talk to him. Seeing that it was just Jody coming in to check on him, his shoulders deflated a little bit and he turned back to picking at the label of the bottle of beer he was nursing. He felt the warmth of Jody's small, but strong hand on his shoulder and he reached up to lay his larger and much rougher hand over hers. He’d messed up big, he knew it, and it was nice to know that he had someone on his side.

Jody slid her hand from his shoulder and went to grab a beer of her own from the fridge before moving to sit across from Dean at the table. With a pop and fizz, she took a long swig of the cool liquid and just stared at the younger man in silence for awhile. It hurt her when one of her boys hurt and this was a situation that she had no idea how to fix for him. After a few minutes of not talking, she sat the bottle down on the table and leaned in to look at Dean. “She’ll talk to you eventually, Dean. She almost has to. There’s going to be a lot of questions and you’re the only one who can answer them. It’s got to be a lot for her to take in, especially with everything she’s gone through lately. Just give her some time.”

“I don’t know, Jody. This...this might not be something she can just forgive and forget. Hell, I don’t blame her. We’ve kept the truth from her for sixteen years.”

“So, why didn’t you tell her? Why wait this long? It’s not like you haven’t been in her life all this time. You mean to tell me that never, at any point in the past sixteen years, was there an opportunity to sit her down at tell her the truth?” Jody sat back in her chair and just raised an eyebrow at him in disbelief. She knew damned well that the Winchesters were in and out of town on a regular basis, and now that she knew the truth she had a feeling it had to do with more than just needing help from Bobby. There was no logical reason she could think of for keeping Harley in the dark for so long about her true parentage.

Hearing the question, Dean just snorted softly and shook his head as he took another swig of his beer. “I wanted to, Jody. God, I wanted to. Especially once she was old enough to start asking about her mother. I wanted to tell her everything back then, but...everyone convinced me that it was a bad idea. She was too young, Bobby was the only father she ever knew, she’d never understand. Then the older she got the harder it got to find a way to tell her, the timing was just never right. How do you tell a kid who’s mourning her Uncle John that he was actually her grandpa? Or how do you say ‘Hey, Harley, I’m your real dad...oh, and by the way, in a few months I’ll be dead because I’ve got a hellhound on my ass. Every year that went by I’d reconvince myself that I’d done the right thing and that she was safer this way. The stuff Sammy and I got into? That was nothing for a kid to be involved in and it was better for nobody to know who she was to me. So, we just kept living the lie and now...here we are.”

The weathered old chair creaked as Jody sat back and listened. She took a moment to let it all sink in. In her head, she couldn’t argue with any of his logic or reasoning. In her heart, however, she felt that Harley had deserved to know the truth. Any child deserved to know the truth about their family, no matter how nontraditional it may be. “I can understand wanting to keep your child safe, you know I do. But...you all had to know there was a possibility of this happening one day.”

“We did, but...we hoped that it wouldn’t happen until after she was eighteen, so she’d never have to know the truth. Or, worst case scenario, we hoped that we’d at least have a chance to tell her before it came to this.” Dean just shook his head as he ran his fingers through his hair. This, his daughter finding out the truth this way, it was worse than the day his father had found out that Dean had gotten a girl pregnant. That had been hard, and had scared the hell out of Dean, but this just hurt. “I...we...screwed up. I don’t know that she’ll ever speak to me again, which is going to be difficult seeing as how I’m her legal guardian. Which, to be honest, that’s the last thing I’m worried about right now. I’m not about to swoop in now and start acting like her dad or something. Right now, I just want to know that she’s okay. Not necessarily okay with all of this, but just...okay. In general. I don’t like thinking of her upstairs dealing with this alone.”

Jody glanced from Dean to the stairs and back again. “Did you want me to try talking to her? I’m not in the situation so...she might talk to me. I can at least give it a shot.”

“I...yeah, if you wouldn’t mind? Just check on her. Make sure she’s alright.”

With a soft sigh and an internal debate about why she got herself involved in these things, Jody pushed back from the table and slowly headed up the stairs to Harley’s room. Knocking softly on the door, she opened it and peaked in to check on the girl. She wasn’t sure what she’d find, but part of her had been hoping that Harley would have fallen asleep by now, overwhelmed by the day’s turn of events, but there was no such luck. The young girl was sitting on the floor of her room, her back against the bed and her knees pulled up against her chest as her body shook with silent sobs. Without saying a word, Jody walked over and sat down on the floor next to the girl, reaching out a hand to lay on her shoulder.

Harley jerked away at the feeling of someone touching her and her head flew up, the expression on her face unreadable before it slowly shifted into anger. “Did you know? Did you know he was my father?”

Pulling her hand back, not wanting to upset the teen anymore than the girl already was, she rested it on her own lap as she shook her head. “I just found out myself a few hours ago, sweetheart. Right before you found out. If it’s any consolation...had I known, I would have convinced those idiots to tell you a long time ago.”

“I...I feel so stupid. My whole life has been a lie. I mean, what else don’t I know about myself? Is my mother still out there somewhere? Did she not want me? Do...do I have any siblings out there?” The expression on Harley’s face changed and she frowned, looking over at Jody with a sad look in her eyes. “Dean...he was with Lisa and Ben for awhile. He was like a dad to Ben. Why could he do that for him, but not for me? Is it because I was a girl? He probably wanted a boy, instead.”

Wrapping one arm around Harley’s shoulder and pulled the young girl against her side with a sigh. Laying her head against Harley’s, the motherly instinct kicked in and Jody played with the girl’s hair softly as she tried to comfort her. This whole situation was taking a bigger toll on the teen than anyone had imagined and for more reasons than any of them had anticipated. Not only was she trying to deal with the grief of losing her father, and finding out that Bobby hadn’t actually been her father, but it seemed like she was also going to be dealing with feelings of abandonment and inadequacy. “I don’t know, sweetheart. I can’t answer any of those questions. But...I know someone who can and right now he’s sitting downstairs, worrying about you. I bet if you went down and talked to him he’d answer any of the questions you have.”

Harley sniffed softly and shook her head as she wiped her eyes. “I...I can’t talk to him right now, Jody. I’m almost afraid to, what if he tells me he never wanted me and that’s why Dad took me? Now he’s stuck with me and he might not even want to be. I know I should go down there, but...I just can’t face him right now.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harley finally comes out of her room and, much to her dismay, runs into someone. Lucky for her, it’s someone she doesn’t mind talking to.

The sun had just started peeking up over the horizon, the sky painted with varying shades of pink and orange, when Harley finally stirred in the morning. She was hoping and praying that nobody else was awake, yet. Given the events of the night before, she wasn’t sure that she was ready to face anybody just yet. Everything that had happened, everything that had been said, was still swirling around in her mind as an endless cacophony that wouldn’t leave her alone. She had a lot to think about and try to make sense of and she wanted to try and do it alone for a little while before she had anyone try and talk to her.

Pushing the blankets off of her, she frowned a little as the cold morning air hit her and she looked down to realize that she was still wearing the skirt and tank top she’d worn the day before. Apparently she had been more tired than she thought and had fallen asleep in her clothes. Pushing up off the bed, she rummaged through her closet until she found her favorite comfort outfit, an old pair of jeans and a worn out hoodie she’d had for a few years. Changing from the clothes she’d worn for the memorial into something a little warmer and a lot more comfortable, she took a deep breath and steeled herself as she prepared to go out and face the world.

Slowly opening the door to her bedroom, Harley grimaced a little as the old hinges squealed in protest at being put to use. Chewing softly on her bottom lip, she poked her head out into the hallway and looked up and down the hall, a soft sigh of relief escaping her lips when she saw nobody else there. It appeared that maybe she had lucked out after all and was the only one awake at this unGodly time of morning. Now that she felt a little more confident in the solitude, she moved out of her bedroom and padded down the hall to the staircase so she could head downstairs to begin her morning.

Harley had every intention of going down to the kitchen to make herself a cup of hot tea that she could take outside to the porch and enjoy as she tried to gather her thoughts. If she just had a little time to think, she kept telling herself, then maybe everything would be okay and she could make sense of this whole situation. If she could just try and process it a little bit, maybe she would be able to come to grips with the fact that her entire world had just come crashing down around her. In the past weeks she had not only lost her father, but now she had it sprung on her that he wasn’t her father after all; not only was she not a Singer, but it would seem she was a damned Winchester. How the hell was this her life?

As she descended the stairs she tried to hold in a groan as she heard the distinct clinking sound of mugs in the cabinet hitting against one another as someone helped themselves to one. Of fucking course at least one other person had to be awake, she wasn’t lucky enough to be granted just a little bit of solitude this morning. Creeping down the stairs, trying not to make any noise, she flinched a little when she forgot the noisy stair and stepped down only to hear a loud and completely unmissable creek coming from beneath her feet. Closing her eyes for a moment, Harley whispered a silent prayer that if she stayed still long enough maybe she would become invisible and go unnoticed by whoever was rustling around in the kitchen.

As her eyes slowly opened, Harley frowned when she looked up and saw hazel eyes staring back at her, full of concern on a face that was wearing a frown identical to hers. Letting out a loud huff of a sigh, one that she hoped would convey just how annoyed she was, she gave up trying to be silent and stealthy as she stomped into the room and flopped down on one of the kitchen chairs with a huff. “Hi, Sam.”

“Hey, Harley.” Sam cautiously walked over, trying to feel up the situation laid out before him, and carefully sank down into the chair across the table from her. “How are you doing?”

Harley rolled her eyes so hard that she was pretty sure she saw the back of her own skull and let out a very unladylike snort as she looked over at Sam with a solid bitchface. “Seriously? You are SERIOUSLY going to ask me that right now? Let’s see...my dad is dead but, OH, about that….my entire life has been a lie. He wasn’t actually my dad, he was just...I don’t even know what, because apparently DEAN is my dad. So, yeah...I’m doing GREAT, Sam.”

“Okay, okay. Stupid question.” Sam threw up his hands in defense as he leaned back in the chair and looked over at her. “Look, Harley, I know this is all a bit of a shock. But...you have to know, neither of them ever wanted you to find out like this.”

“Never wanted me to find out ‘like this’? I think it’s pretty safe to say that neither of them had any intention of me ever finding out. It’s not like they had my whole life to tell me or anything Which, now that I think about it....” Looking over at the man sitting across the table from her, she narrowed her eyes and leaned in to glare at him. “You’ve known this whole time, haven’t you. I mean, you’d have to know, you’re my uncle. There’s no way you didn’t know about it. YOU could have told me. But you didn’t, did you? Why is it that ALL of you decided that I didn’t deserve to know the truth about MY OWN LIFE?”

Sam sighed softly as he shook his head, knowing he was going to have to tread lightly here. It was obvious that Harley was upset and rightfully so. It was a lot for her to take in and it really should have been handled years ago, while Bobby was still alive. Now he was gone and everyone else was left to fix the mess that had been left behind. “Harley...it wasn’t that anybody thought you didn’t deserve to know. But you know what we’ve all been dealing with for the past few years, Dean and I especially. We were all trying to keep you safe. If anyone had known you were related to us, that you were Dean’s daughter….hell, look what happened to Adam. That could have been you, Harley, and nobody was willing to take that risk.”

“Okay, that’s been in the past few years. But what about before that? You’ve only been in the really bad stuff for, what, six years? Before that you weren’t doing anything worse than my dad was in. If it was safe for me with him, why not with you guys?” She shook her head a little and leaned forward, resting her head in her hands as she massaged her temples slowly, thinking about all of this and trying to figure it out was starting to give her a headache. “Why was I even with him to begin with? Why wasn’t I with my family? Why...why didn’t he want me, Sam?”

Taking in a deep breath, Sam let it out with a sigh as his cheeks puffed out slowly. Not only was Harley starting to ask the million dollar questions, but they were the questions that were starting to tread into dangerous water...questions that Sam wasn’t comfortable answering. “I...I’m not the one you should be asking that to, Harley. If you want those answers, you’re going to have to ask Dean.”

“Ask me what?” 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harley’s first interaction with Dean after she finds out the truth about their relationship is quite rocky. Thankfully Sam is there to run interference, but Harley ends up giving him an ultimatum.

“Ask me what?”

 

At the sound of the rough, deep voice coming from the doorway of the kitchen, Harley whipped around and frowned as she saw Dean staring back at her. She didn’t want to be in the same room as him, yet, let alone talk to him. She was still angry at him about the years of lies, as well as still being hurt feeling that he had never wanted her. It might be immature of her, but she wasn’t going to just make it easy on him to try and come into her life, now. 

 

“Nothing. Nobody needs to ask you anything.” Harley pushed back from the table and moved to try and brush past him to get out of the room. She just needed to get outside, to get away from him and to get some fresh air. Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t able to get past him without him lightly grabbing onto her arm and stopping her from going anywhere.

 

“Harley, hold on a second. We need to talk.”

 

Looking up at him, her eyes narrowed in a death glare, she yanked her arm out of his grip and moved away from him as quickly as she could. “I have nothing to say to you, Dean.” 

 

“I’m sure you don’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are things that need to be talked about and figured out.” Dean just sighed softly and shook his head as he stepped back from her, not wanting to crowd her or invade her personal space. He understood that she was upset, he couldn’t blame her for that, and he didn’t want to upset her any farther. It was a thin line he was walking, doing everything he could to keep the balance. “I don’t want to fight with you, Harley. You don’t have to like me, you don’t even have to respect me, but for the time being you at least need to listen to me. Until you’re eighteen, I’m responsible for you, and I’m trying to make this whole thing as easy as I can for all of us.”

 

Harley just stared at him, the glare never leaving her face, before rolling her eyes and moving back to the kitchen table. Not wanting to give Dean a chance to sit anywhere near her, she flopped heavily into the chair next to Sam. Leaning back into the seat, she crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow as she looked up at Dean. “You wanted to talk? So...talk.”

 

Dean had to take in a deep breath and bite his tongue to keep from saying anything about her attitude. He might be sympathetic to the way she was feeling right now, but he did have his limits and she was seriously testing his patience right now. Walking over to take a seat across from her, he leaned in and rested his arms on the table as he looked at her. “Look...Sam and I, we’ve got to head out soon, we got a call this morning we need to check on. Obviously we can’t just leave you here alone. Jody already said you could stay with her for awhi-”

 

He wasn’t even able to finish his sentence before Harley was pushing back from the table again, standing up so fast and so violently that her chair tumbled to the ground with a loud crash. Both of the men jumped at the sound and looked up at her in confusion. Before either of them could say anything, she was ranting loudly as she paced the room. “You have GOT to be KIDDING me. Jody? You want to pawn me off on Jody? You tell me you’re my damned father and then you can’t get rid of me quick enough, passing me off to someone else just like you did with my REAL dad.”

 

As soon as she was done ranting, she turned and ran out of the room. The squeaking of old, rusty hinges and the sound of the screen door hitting off the side of the house before slamming back into place letting the two brothers know that she had left the house. Dean’s eyes were still wide in shock in confusion as he turned to look at his brother.

 

“What the hell was that all about?”

 

Sam shook his head and looked over at his brother, sadly. None of this was going well, not that either of them had expected it to, but it was even worse than anyone had anticipated. They, all of them, had really made a mess of things by not telling her the truth from the start. “You heard her, Dean. She thinks you’re trying to get rid of her. To get her out of your life.”

 

“She...she what? That’s ridiculous. I just thought…” Dean took in a deep breath and sighed heavily as he pinched the bridge of his nose. A headache was starting to form and he had the feeling it was only going to get worse before it got better. “I really made of mess of things, didn’t I? This situation, her whole life, it’s all my doing.”

 

Dropping his hand back down to the table, Dean moved to push back to follow her, but the feeling of his brother’s hand on his arm stopped him. “Dean...let me try and talk to her, okay? She’s upset with me, too, but I think she’ll listen to me better than she would you.”

 

Dean opened his mouth to say something, but he slowly closed it and nodded his head. He knew his brother was right. He wanted to try and repair the relationship with his daughter, to try and have a relationship with her at all, but now was not the time. She needed someone she would trust and could talk to, and it appeared that he was not that for her. 

 

Luckily, Sam didn’t have to go far to find Harley. She was in the driveway, curled up in a ball in the back of her dad’s car. Walking over to her, Sam knocked softly on the window to get her attention before sliding into the passenger seat and looking back at her. Harley looked up at him, her eyes shining with tears that she was trying to hold back, but didn’t say a word to him. Sam took her silence as his cue to start the conversation. “He’s not trying to get rid of you, Harley, or trying to pawn you off on anyone.”

 

Harley snorted softly and rolled her eyes as she turned her gaze to stare out the window of the car. “Sure has a funny way of showing it. First he pawns me off on my dad, now he’s ready to sign me over to Jody. It’s like a game of Musical Harley. I don’t know why he didn’t just let some nice couple have me or something when I was a baby, since he obviously doesn’t want me around or to be some kind of crimp in his life.” 

 

“Harley, I promise you, it’s not like that. I can’t speak for when you were a baby. That’s Dean’s story to tell you, not mine. But as for right now, it’s not that he doesn’t want you around. He’s always wanted you around, we both have, but...the three of us all talked it over. We thought this, for you to stay with Jody, would be what you would want so you didn’t have to leave your school or your friends.” Harley turned her head toward him and gave him a look that was a cross between a glare and a disbelieving glance, causing Sam to throw his hands up in defense. “Obviously we were wrong, I get it. Obviously, we need a little more time to work out the fine details. But, Dean was right, we have to leave soon and we don’t have time to hammer everything out right now. So, for right now...stay with Jody. Just for a couple of weeks. Let us take care of what we need to and then we’ll come back here, all of us can talk this out and come up with a plan that makes everyone happy. If that means you come with us, then...I guess you’ll be coming with us. Just...give us a couple of weeks, okay?”

 

Looking down at her sweatshirt, Harley sighed softly as she picked at a non-existent piece of lint on her hoodie. It wasn’t much of a choice, but it seemed as if she didn’t have any choices anymore. At least if she had to be pawned off on someone, it was someone she knew as opposed to being placed with some strangers in the foster care system. Looking up at Sam, she wiped all emotion off her face as she gave a shrug of her shoulders. “Fine, I’ll stay with her a few weeks. But, when you’re done doing whatever it is that’s more important than me...if you’re not coming back to get me and take me with you, then don’t bother coming back at all.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harley is where she wants to be, with Dean and Sam, and accompanying them on a hunt. Of course, things never go as planned for the Winchesters and Harley ends up getting a scare.

True to his word, Sam had made sure Dean came back to Sioux Falls after they had helped a young girl find her missing hunter father. There was still a widespread threat from Dick Roman and the Leviathan but, as Sam put it to his older brother, sometimes there were more important things. Right now they had a sixteen year old girl who needed to feel like a priority rather than an afterthought. It had been a tense reunion, as everyone tried to work out what the best course of action was for Harley’s future. She wanted to go with Dean and Sam, arguing that they owed it to her to have the chance to be with the only family she had left. Jody was trying to convince her that it would be better for her to stay put, just until she finished high school. Meanwhile the two brothers, Dean in particular, were walking on eggshells to try and come up with a realistic solution that both made Harley happy and kept her safe.

All plans and negotiations had come to a quick halt when the boys came across another case. Knowing that it wasn’t going to go over well with Harley if they left her behind Dean had begrudging agreed to allow her to come along, with the understanding that it was still only a temporary solution and they were still going to sit down and figure out exactly what was going to happen with her on a permanent basis. She wasn’t thrilled that anyone still thought she wasn’t going with them permanently, but at least it was a start in her eyes. She could prove to Dean and Sam that she could hold her own on a hunt, she’d been doing it with her dad for years, and that she would be an asset to them rather than a hindrance.

Things had been going well, too, at first. While the two men were out questioning witnesses, a task that they both claimed Harley was too young to be convincing at, she had stayed in the abandoned house they were squatting in and started researching anything and everything she could find that would leave behind mummified victims. It turned out that she was a lot like her uncle in the fact that she was a good researcher; one who managed to find the smallest of details in a sea of information.

Then, things had taken a bit of a southward turn when Sam had come back to the house alone. Harley looked up from her research when he walked into the room, then frowned slightly when she realized that Dean wasn’t following close behind. Sam had a pained look on his face as he walked over and sat on the edge of the bed to look over at her. Harley just stared at him and shook her head slowly, not wanting to hear whatever he had to say. “No. Whatever you’re going to tell me, just no. I don’t want to know.”

“Harley…”

“I said NO!” Harley hadn’t even realized that her hands had started shaking until Sam reached out and gently grabbed on to one in an attempt to calm her. Looking down at where he was holding onto her, grounding her in a way, she took a few deep breaths to steady her nerves before looking up at him. “Where’s Dean at?”

Sam just sighed softly and shook his head as he gave her hand a little squeeze. “I don’t know, sweetheart. He just...disappeared. He was there and then he wasn't. I already called Jody, she’s on her way with some stuff of your dad’s. I’m hoping there will be something in there that can help us figure out what happened.”

Harley bit down hard on her lip, a metallic taste filling her mouth as she broke the skin. This couldn’t be happening. She had just lost her dad, now she had lost the only person she had left. Yes, she was mad beyond belief at him, but that didn’t mean she wished harm upon him or wanted him gone entirely. Especially if it meant that now she would never get to talk to him about her past or to try and get answers about her mother. She would never find out why he hadn’t wanted her and would never get a chance to try and forgive him. Sniffing softly, she looked up at Sam. “Why do I keep losing everyone? I-I don’t like him right now, but that doesn’t mean I wanted to lose him. Am I going to lose you, too?”

“Harley…” Sam was quick to get up off the bed and pull her into a standing position, his arms wrapping around her as he held her tight. “You haven’t lost him, we’re going to find a way to get him back. I promise. As for me...you’re never going to lose me, either, kiddo. I’m not going anywhere and I’m never going to leave you. I promise.”

She just nodded her head as she hugged Sam and buried her face against his chest. As much as she wanted to believe him, she just couldn’t allow herself to get her hopes up. Everything in her life up until this point seemed to suggest otherwise. “Wh-what are we going to do now?”

Sam just kissed the top of her head and gave her a gentle shove towards one of the beds in the room. “You’re going to go to sleep is what you’re going to do. We can’t do anything right now. Jody should be here tomorrow and we can get started then. In the meantime, you need to get some rest. We’ll figure this out, Harley. I swear to you, we will.”

Harley crawled into bed and tried to sleep, but her sleep was fitful at best. She tossed and turned, never dozing for more than twenty minutes or so at a time throughout the night. Every time she closed her eyes and started falling asleep, she would jerk awake with a nightmare of slowly losing everyone she had ever cared about, one by one. By the time she finally managed to actually fall asleep from exhaustion, the sun was starting to peek through the curtains in the room.

She didn’t know how long she slept, but when she woke up Sam and Jody were both sitting at the table, research material spread out all around them as they poured through books and journals with grim expressions on both of their faces. Forcing herself out of bed with a yawn, she stretched her arms over her head and groaned softly as she felt her back pop in three different places. Shuffling slowly across the room, she plopped down in the chair next to Sam as her eyes traveled sadly over the papers in front of him, recognizing the handwriting in the notes as her dad’s. “Have you found anything, yet?”

Sam frowned a little as he glanced over at Jody, then looked back at his niece. Right now he was mentally cursing himself for allowing her to come on this hunt with them, because it was turning out to be a shit show and with her being as fragile as she was right now, he didn’t know how she was going to handle it if things went south. “Well, we’re pretty sure we’re dealing with Chronos, the god of time. Which means that Dean is somewhere else in time. The problem is that we don’t know where, exactly. Or...how to get him back.”

Harley frowned a little as she picked up some of her dad’s notes, hoping that something would jump out at her that could be helpful. She had helped her dad on a lot of hunts, she’d even helped him with research for the Winchesters on several occasions, but never had it felt so personal. Never had she felt so damned helpless that she couldn’t do anything. Reaching down into one of the boxes, she smiled sadly as she pulled out a bottle of scotch that her dad’s buddy Rufus had sent him years ago. “If I didn’t think my daddy would roll over in his grave, I’d probably finish this bottle off right now. I’d say if anyone’s earned it right now, I have.”

Sam just smiled softly and laid one hand on her arm as he reached over and took the bottle from her. He himself had been introduced to alcohol by her age, and something told him that she wasn’t completely unfamiliar with the burn of a good whiskey, but no matter how much she might deserve a strong drink he knew his brother would kill him if she was allowed any right now. “Let’s hold off on that a few years okay, kiddo? We’re going to figure this out and get him back. If we don’t...I’ll personally pour you a glass of this myself, okay?”

“Yeah...okay...sounds good.” Harley shrugged her shoulders a little as she gathered up some of her dad’s books and papers and went to curl up on the bed while she helped with the research. Just over an hour later, she was jumping up off the bed in excitement with a book clutched in her hand. “Uncle Sam? Uncle Sam, I think I found something! I found a spell that can be used to summon a god. We could use it to get Chronos and he could bring Dean back!”

Sam couldn’t keep the look of surprise off of his face and he exchanged a glance with Jody when Harley addressed him as Uncle, but he chose not to comment on it. He didn’t know if she had intended to call him that and he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable if she didn’t. Walking over to take the book from her, he read over the spell and a smile formed on his face as he realized that this could work. “This is exactly what we needed to get him back, Harley. You did good, kiddo, all we have to do is find out where in time he is and when Chronos might have his hands on him and we’ll have him back.”

Harley couldn’t keep the smile off her face at knowing she’d found the key to getting Dean back. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about him, but she did want him back. Plopping back down on the bed, her smile quickly faded into a confused frown as she noticed something across the room. “Uh...Sam? Why is your name on that baseboard over there?”

Following his niece’s gaze across the room, Sam noticed what she was pointing out to him and went over to pry the baseboard off the wall. Pulling out a folded piece of paper, Sam grinned when he realized it was a letter from his brother, detailing what had happened to him after he had disappeared from an alleyway. “Okay...we’ve got the spell, we’ve got a date, now all we need is a time and I think I know where we can get that.”

In just a matter of a few short hours, they went from having nothing to having everything they would need to get Dean back. Sam and Jody had talked to someone who had been there with Dean and Chronos and found out exactly what time the two would be touching. All that was left was to bring the man home. Harley stood and watched nervously as Jody and her uncle set up the spell. Though she wasn’t the most religious person growing up, ever since she had found out that things like angels were real she put a little more stock in religion and she sent up a little prayer that this would work. She watched as the paper burned and held her breath as she waited for something to happen.

As soon as the flame burned out on the paper, everything began to happen all at once. It was all over so quickly yet seemed to move in slow motion. Before she could register what was happening there was a huge gust of wind and a flash of light before Dean and a man she didn’t recognize appeared in front of them. Harley stood frozen in place as she watched Dean collapse to the ground, Jody running to him as Sam took on who Harley had to assume was the god they’d been looking for. As soon as the god was dead and Dean was standing up from the floor dusting himself off, Harley launched herself at him and wrapped her arms tightly around him.

“Dean! I thought you were gone. I-I thought I lost you, too.”

Holding on tightly to his daughter, Dean looked over the top of her head and raised his eyebrows at his younger brother, who just shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. This was definitely a change from the girl he had seen last, the one who would barely talk to him let alone touch him. He wasn’t sure what caused the change in attitude and he was afraid to mention it, let alone question it, for fear that she would revert back to the person she’d been a few days ago. Kissing the top of her head softly, he held her tight as he ran his hand comfortingly along her back. “I’m right here, kiddo. Don’t you worry, you’re not getting rid of me that easily. You’re stuck with me and I’m not planning on going anywhere. I’m sure as hell not going to leave you ever again.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashback chapter. Harley is two-weeks-old. It’s time for Dean to hand her over to a new life, but first it’s time for Uncle Sammy to meet his niece.

_Dean sat on an old beat up worn out couch, his two-week-old daughter sleeping contently in his arms. Her body heat was permeating through the thin fabric of his t-shirt, making him feel even warmer in the already top stuffy home. As he patted her back gently, smiling when he heard a small sigh come from her mouth as she snuggled closer against her father's chest, he could feel the little puffs of air of her breath tickling against his skin. Never in a million years had he thought he would be any good at being somebody’s father, let alone a single father, but he had taken to it like a duck to water. He supposed it made sense, he had pretty much raised Sammy from the time he was 6-months-old; taking care of his daughter wasn’t much different, she was just a lot tinier and more fragile than Sam had ever been._

_For the first time in his life, Dean felt as if he had a purpose of his own, that he wasn’t just a good little soldier in his father’s personal three man army. Now, he was in danger of losing his daughter. She had barely come into his life, he had barely gotten a chance to be her father, and now his own father was trying to take it away from him. They had come here to try and convince Bobby to take the baby, to take care of her and raise her as his own, so that she wouldn’t be a ‘burden’ or a ‘distraction’ for the Winchester men._

_How a man could look at their own grandchild and consider them anything but a blessing was beyond Dean, but John Winchester had managed to do it. Dean supposed it made sense, seeing as how the little girl was his. That’s all he’d ever been to his father. A liability. An extra burden. Sam had always been the favorite. Sam was the one to be protected at all costs. Hell, if this had happened in a few years to Sam, Dean would place money that the baby would have been welcomed with open arms and would have been just as protected as Sam always had been._

_Almost as if his brother’s thoughts had summoned him, Sam materialized in the living room from wherever he had disappeared to as soon as they’d arrived. Not saying a word, he walked over and flopped down on the couch next to his brother. He barely even looked at his older brother anymore, let alone spoke to him, so it was a bit of a shock that he had voluntarily sat on the same piece of furniture with him. Dean looked over at his younger brother, not even bothering to hide the look of surprise and skepticism on his face, and noticed Sam looking over at him out of the corner of his eye. More specifically he noticed the younger boy stealing glances at the sleeping baby. It was the first time Sam had shown any interest at all in the baby, and Dean couldn’t keep from raising his eyebrows a little. “What’s up, Sammy? You got something to say?”_

_Sam quickly averted his eyes back down to his lap, studying his hands intently in an attempt to cover up the fact that he had been caught looking over at them. “Why’d you have to go and mess things up? Everything was just fine before. You, me, dad…we were doing okay. Then you messed up and all of…this happened. Now it’s all just a mess.”_

_“You think I did any of this on purpose? Trust me, of all things I could intentionally do to piss off dad, this was never on the top of my to do list. But, shit happens sometimes. I tried to fix it, we were going to take care of it before anyone found out, but we got caught. Now she’s here and, honestly, I can’t say I wish it were different. It might not be what I planned and it might not be ideal, but she’s my baby girl and I love her.” Dean couldn’t keep the proud smile from his face as he looked down at the sleeping baby in his arms and ran a finger down over her face. “Did you want to see her, Sammy? Maybe hold her?”_

_The younger boy’s shoulders raised in a half hearted shrug as he mumbled a reply. “I dunno. I guess?”_

_Dean smiled a little as he shifted the baby in his arms, shushing her gently when she stirred and whimpered softly at the inconvenience of being jostled and moved away from the warmth of her father’s body. “Well then, hold out your arms Uncle Sammy. It’s about damned time you met your niece.”_

_Chewing on his bottom lip nervously, Sam held out his arms and waited for his brother to hand the sleeping baby over to him. He’d never been around a baby before, let alone held one, so it felt all wrong at first. His body was more stiff than comfortable as he tried to find a way to hold the little girl that didn’t feel awkward or make him feel like he was going to break her. When he finally found a way to hold her that was comfortable for him and seemed comfortable for her, he finally relaxed and finally took the time to look at his niece and really see her for the first time. One look at the peaceful look on her little face and he could feel his heart melting. “She…she’s not too bad, I suppose. She’s actually kind of cute. Must not look like you at all. But, she looks so peaceful. Like, she’s so innocent. She has no idea everything wrong and messed up in this world.”_

_Knowing that this was likely going to be the only time he ever saw his brother holding his daughter, Dean wished he had a camera to capture the moment. As he listened to his brother talk about the baby, he just nodded with a smile. Reaching his hand out, he pressed one finger into her little palm and smiled when her tiny soft fingers wrapped around it and held on with a grip that seemed impossibly strong for someone so small. “She’s pretty damned perfect. I wish I could keep her that way.”_

_When John walked into the room a few minutes later, Bobby following close behind him, he scowled at the sight in front of him. “Boys, it’s time to leave. Give her to Bobby and let’s go.”_


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harley and Dean are in a good place finally and there seems to be less tension in the family. But all it takes is one bad hunt for things to shift and the tension to return.

Having a teenaged girl around was taking some getting used to, but both of the Winchester men were giving it their best shot. The idea had been brought up, again, for Harley to stay in Sioux Falls with Jody so she could continue attending the school she had gone to for years, but Harley had quickly nixed that idea. After the events in Canton, she was even more determined than ever to be with her biological family and to get to know them before anything could happen to either of them.

So, the two men had reluctantly helped her to pack up the things that meant the most to her and moved her in with them. Now, when they weren’t working a case, their days consisted of trying to navigate a life with a teenager in it. Though she would never admit it to them, it gave Harley a small sense of pleasure to watch their faces turn beet red when her underwear would turn up in the laundry; and she had nearly died laughing at the look on Dean’s face when she’d asked him to drive her to the store so she could buy tampons. It had been uncomfortable for her to have to ask him in the first place, but seeing him turn 50 shades of red and shift uncomfortably when she made the request had made it worth it.

Surprisingly enough, the easiest part for all of them had been long road trips between cases. The ride from Kansas to Seattle, where they were currently working a case, had been a 23 hour trip split up over two days worth of driving. It had turned out to be the most at ease that Harley had felt since moving in with them. It could have been awkward, being alone in a car with them for that long, but instead it had turned into a bonding experience for all three of them. From playing stupid car games like I Spy to singing along to the car radio, Harley could almost allow herself to feel as if she was actually part of their family now.

Once the three arrived in Seattle, family time was over and work time began. Harley was dropped off at the local fleabag motel, left in a room that smelled of stale cigarette smoke and something else she really didn’t want to try and figure out, while the two Winchesters headed off to talk to the local authorities. While they were gone Harley was expected to do homework for the online high school she was attending, until the two men came back and gave her her ‘official assignment’ for the case. Though she was more than capable of fighting, Harley knew that more often than not she was going to be helping with research.

Neither Dean nor Sam seemed too keen to let her get involved directly in a case, both of them citing that they didn’t want her to get hurt. Truthfully, Harley didn’t mind all that much. She had always enjoyed the research aspect of hunting, the learning new things about various so-called ‘mythical creatures’, and getting to put her newfound information to practical use. Or, more accurately, getting to help other hunters learn how to put the information to use. She had always assumed she had picked up the affinity for research from her dad, but now she was coming to realize that it was something she shared in common with her uncle and she was enjoying using research time as a way to bond with him.

Unfortunately this case hadn’t allowed her much research time with her uncle. Harley had spent most of their time in town in the hotel room doing homework, while Dean and Sam were out doing all of the leg work. It was driving her crazy and she was starting to feel cabin fever, all but begging to be allowed to go out with them, but they were both adamant that she stay out of harm’s way. They had been in town a good couple of days before they had found anything that she could be useful with. The brothers had come back from a meeting with a professor who had found the origins of a symbol that had been carved into the victims, a symbol that traced back to the Amazons. Now that they had something a little more concrete to go on, Harley was camped out on her bed with her laptop on her legs as she tried to dig up everything she could on the Amazons.

“Hey Dean? Uncle Sam?Check this out, I found some stuff that may or may not be useful. Amazons...they’ve got this crazy mating ritual thing. They mate every two years and the babies are born fast, within 36 hours of mating. Then the kid ages fast. Like...Renesmee fast. Once they reach adulthood, aging becomes normal. Then, according to the lore, the men they used to procreate...they cut off body parts and then kill them. Didn’t you say there have been other cases like this, in other towns? Every two years? I mean, it all lines up.” She looked up from her computer and noticed the way the two brothers were looking at each other, looks of panic on both of their faces, and she frowned. “Uh, guys? You two alright?”

Sam looked at his niece, then looked back at his brother with wide eyes. “Dean, didn’t you say that woman you were with suddenly had a baby that there were no signs of before? Then the baby became a kid pretty fast? If all this is true.”

Dean just shook his head as he looked at his brother, the look of panic obvious on his face. “No, don’t say it. This...just, no.”

Harley looked between the two men, trying to figure out what they were talking about, before snorting softly as the pieces fell into place. “You got some Amazon chick knocked up, didn’t you? Looks like you’re pretty good at making babies. Lucky for you, you won’t have to deal with raising this one. Oh...wait...you never did that to begin with anyway, did you?”

“Harley…”

“No, you don’t have to say anything. Guess you didn’t learn how to wrap it up after my mom, did you? Wonder how many other kids out there you’ve got. Not that you’d care or anything.” She just shook her head a little as she pushed up off the bed and grabbed her jacket from the chair she’d tossed it on. “I’m gonna go for a walk.”

“Harley…” Sam laid his hand on her arm to stop her before she could walk out of the room. “You know this isn’t something that was done on purpose, right? It’s just one of those weird coincidences that happens sometimes.”

Harley didn’t say a word, she just nodded her head as she moved to walk out the door. The entire situation was just too much for her. The idea of having some freak of nature sister was one thing, but then to top it off...apparently now Dean was going to die. After he had promised her that he wasn’t going to go anywhere. She was beginning to think that coming with them, that moving in with them at all, was a big mistake. She was tired of losing people in her life, but it seemed like it was her fate in life. “Yeah, Uncle Sam, I know. I just….need to get out for a bit. I’ll be okay, I promise. I won’t stay gone long.”

Not staying gone too long ended up turning into several hours as Harley wandered the streets, trying to gather her thoughts. Rationally she knew that none of this was Dean’s fault, that none of it really changed anything in her life. Even if he didn’t die, which just the thought of losing him was making her feel sick to her stomach, it wasn’t like he was going to bring some Amazon kid home with him. Dean Winchester wasn’t exactly father of the year material, so the likelihood of him giving a shit about some freaky monster kid was pretty low. Hell, he hadn’t given a shit about her and she was one hundred percent human. At least...she didn’t think he would care about this...thing. Maybe that’s where her uneasiness with the whole situation was coming from. He’d already proven that he could care about a kid, he’d done it for long enough with Ben, so why not a kid that was actually his? Maybe it was just her that he didn’t care about. Maybe there had been something about her that made him not want her, made him not care about her, and it applied only to her.

By the time she got back to the motel it was dark and she couldn’t help but notice that there were no calls or texts to her phone asking where she was or if she was okay; the realization only further solidifying in her mind that neither her uncle nor the man who was her biological father actually cared about her. As she trudged up the stairs towards their motel room, she never noticed that anything was amiss until she saw the door to the room hanging wide open. Being as quiet as she could, not wanting to call attention to herself in case there was a real danger, she sneaked into the room just in time to watch her uncle put a bullet through the chest of a girl who looked to be no older than she was and she let out a startled yell.

Dean stood in the middle of the room, wide eyed as he stared at his brother, barely even noticing Harley standing there in shock. Sam was the first one to get to her and grab onto her, moving her so that she didn’t see the scene in front of her. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen the aftermath of a hunt, it wasn’t even the first time she had watched someone die, but this one had left her a little shaken even as her uncle moved her away as he explained to her that the girl he had just killed had been the Amazon who was trying to kill Dean. Harley just nodded her head a little as she clung to her uncle, trying not to think about the body of the young girl laying on the floor just a few feet from her...or the look of shock, and almost grief, she had seen in Dean’s eyes. Almost as if he hadn’t actually wanted the creature to be killed. That look, and what it might mean, bothered her just as much as witnessing the actually death did.

Later that night, Harley was laying in the back of the car pretending to be asleep as her uncle drove towards home. The tension coming from the front seat of the car was so thick you could practically cut it with a knife and she was trying to avoid it all together. She didn’t know what it was all about, why the two men in the front both seemed so tense all of a sudden, but she had assumed that there was going to be a strained silence between them the entire trip back to Kansas and she would just as soon not be in the middle of it. What she hadn’t expected was for the two of them to start arguing as soon as they thought she was sleeping.

As she laid there, trying not to do anything that would give away the fact that she was awake and listening to them, she heard Sam accusing his brother of hesitating and not watching to kill the girl. Listened as Dean acknowledged that the creature had been his. Then, they brought up her dad and how they were or weren’t dealing with his death, and Harley had to move her hand over her mouth to keep from sobbing. She knew the two brothers had looked at her dad as a father figure, she knew that they’d both been close to him and were just as upset by his death as she was. Or, at least, she had assumed that they were. Neither of them had ever bothered to talk to her about her dad, about how she was feeling after his death, or tried to reassure her that she was not alone in her grief.

The straw that broke the camel’s back however, for her at least, was when Sam told his brother not to get killed. Reminded him that he had Harley to think about, now. That she was depending on him, depending on both of them, and Dean’s only reply had just been that he would do what he could. Not that he would stay safe for her. Not that he knew that Harley needed him. Just that he would do what he could. Harley felt a tear slipping down the side of her face and she tried not to sniff as she cried silently. She’d thought that she was becoming part of the family, that Dean actually wanted her around and didn’t just look at her as an unwanted obligation. Now, however, she was thinking that maybe she had been wrong.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following the events of the Amazon hunt, Harley hasn’t been acting herself and her uncle has taken notice and is starting to worry. After a heart-to-heart with his niece, Uncle Sammy realizes it’s time for a come to Jesus speech with his brother.

Ever since they had gotten back from Seattle, Sam had noticed something seemed off with Harley. He couldn’t quite place his finger on it, but she wasn’t acting quite herself. While she would still join them for meals, her participation in the conversation had become less and it seemed to come more naturally with him than with Dean. She didn’t want to accompany them on hunts anymore, either. Where she had once begged to be allowed to go and help out, now she was preferring to stay by herself. Harley would still help with research, but communication was done primarily through texts or emails rather than face to face conversation. Not only was Sam starting to get worried about her, feeling as if she was slowly pulling away from them, but he was also missing having her company as well as having her with him while he was researching a case.

After several weeks of her acting oddly, Sam could no longer chalk it up to having a bad day or some kind of teenage girl hormone thing. Something was going on and he wanted to find out what it was. He waited until Dean had left for a supply run one day before making his way to the empty room they had fixed up for her and he knocked gently on her door and waited for her to give the okay before he went into the room and walked over to sit on the edge of her bed. “Harley, are you okay? You haven’t been acting yourself lately.”

Harley had been curled up on her bed, working on her latest homework assignment, when her uncle came to see her. It was strange, to her at least, how quickly she had come to think of Sam as her uncle...where as Dean was still just Dean. Bobby would always be her dad and Dean, well, he hadn’t exactly given off any warm fuzzies to make her feel as if he was anything other than what he’d always been...a sort of big brother influence in her life, and nothing more.

When Sam came into her room and sat next to her, she just looked over at him with a shrug of her shoulders. She’d had a lot on her mind lately, but nothing she knew how to put into words...especially not without coming across as a whiny brat. So, rather than say anything to anybody she was just doing what she knew best to do and was keeping it all inside until she could figure out how to process it on her own. “Yeah, Uncle Sam, I’m fine. Just...busy with school and stuff. No big deal.”

“You sure about that, Harley? You’ve been acting strange...it’s been awhile since you went on a case with us. You hardly talk to us anymore...and when you do, you only ever talk to me really. You and Dean seemed to be doing good for awhile, there. Did something happen? You know you can talk to me, right?”

Harley couldn’t help but snort softly as she rolled her eyes. While her uncle might say that she could talk to him, she knew that at the end of the day his loyalty was to his brother and anything she said to him would end up being relayed back to Dean. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing, then she wouldn’t have to be the one to talk to him, but she still wasn’t sure she was ready to have her soul bared to either of them that way. “Yeah, okay. I’ll keep that in mind. But, like I said, I’m fine. Nothing to see here.”

Sam caught the roll of her eyes, noticed how she barely looked up from her computer screen as she talked to him. He might not be an expert in human psychology, but he had a fairly good grasp on when someone was being truthful with him and when they were feeding him a line of bullshit. Reaching out to close her laptop, he moved it away from her and repositioned himself so that he was sitting next to her on the bed, his back leaning against the headboard as he long legs stretched out in front of him. “You don’t have to lie to me, kiddo. I know we’re still figuring out this whole family thing, but...you’re family. If there’s something going on, I want to know. I want to help you.”

Sighing softly, Harley looked over at him and chewed on her bottom lip as she tried to decide how much she could trust him, and how much she wanted to say. Finally, she huffed in surrender as she leaned back against the headboard and laid her head on her uncle’s shoulder. “I heard the two of you talking, you and Dean, on the way back from Seattle. You told him his head wasn’t in the game. It’s because of my dad, and losing him, isn’t it? You guys never talk about him, but...I know Dean’s got his old flask. I’ve seen him drinking out of it. A lot. But you never talk about him. At least not with me. You act like he never existed. I never know if you miss him or not. I do, though. A lot.”

“Harley...why didn’t you ever say anything before? Of course we miss your dad, he was important to us, too. Not as important as he was to you, but...he still meant a lot of us.”

“I want to talk about him, but I get the feeling the two of you would rather avoid the subject. So...I just never bring it up. I just deal with it on my own.”

“Harley, no, you never have to do that. Any time you want to talk about him, you can come to me. I don’t care what else I’m doing, or where I am, I will always make time for you. I don’t want you to keep that stuff bottled up, okay?” He moved to wrap his arm around her shoulders and gave her a little squeeze as she moved to lay her head on his chest. “Was that the only thing bothering you, or was there something else?”

Harley sniffed softly, having barely realized that she had even started crying as she buried her face against her uncle. “I...I heard you say he hesitated. That you didn’t think he was going to kill her, that he was going to let her walk. He-he flat out said that she was his. Like...he acknowledged she was his kid, even if she wasn’t even a human. How was he able to do that with her, but with me...I was never his. He never wanted me. What’s wrong with me, Uncle Sam? Why am I so unloveable to him? Why was it so easy for him to just give me away to my dad, but that girl was some creature and he actually gave a shit about her?”

Sam sighed softly and mentally cursed his brother for having put him in this situation. There was so much about the situation that Harley didn’t know, so much she deserved to know, but it wasn’t his place to say anything to her. Whether he liked it or not Dean needed to talk to her, needed to tell her the whole story, and soon. “Harley, sweetheart, it wasn’t like that. I don’t know what was going through his mind in Seattle, but with you...it was complicated. You need to talk to him about it.”

Harley just shook her head with another sniffle and sat up, pushing away from her uncle. “There’s nothing to talk about, Uncle Sam. He didn’t want me, he gave me away. It’s pretty straight forward, you know? I...I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I have homework to finish. Thanks for checking on me, but I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

Sam opened his mouth like he was going to say more, but thought better of it. He was grateful that he’d gotten as much out of her as he did. Now at least he had an idea of what was going on with her, and a few ideas on what needed to be done to fix it. He had already made up his mind to make it a point to bring up Bobby more often, especially to and around Harley. As for the way she was feeling about Dean, that would be something the two of them would have to work out between them...and Sam was definitely going to put a bug in his brother’s ear to try and fix it.

Two hours later, when Dean came back from the supply run, Sam was waiting for him in the kitchen. Eyeing his older brother as he came in, he waited until Dean had pulled a beer out of the fridge before he said anything “Dean...we need to talk. It’s about Harley.”

Dean raised an eyebrow at his brother as he leaned against the counter and looked over at him. “Harley? What’s going on? Is she okay?”

“Physically, yes. But emotionally...not so much. You need to talk to her, Dean. She thinks you don’t want her. She thinks that you never wanted her, that that’s why Bobby had her. In her mind, you dropped her off and never looked back.”

“What? That’s crazy. You know I wanted to keep that kid. I just couldn’t. Dad wouldn’t let me.”

“I know that, Dean, and you know that. But Harley? She doesn’t and right now, she’s the only one who counts. We’ve got a seriously messed up little girl, who needs to know the whole story.”

Dean’s shoulders slumped a little as he let out a sigh. His brother was right, he knew he was. Like it or not, it was time for him to have a heart to heart with his daughter.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashback chapter. Dean watches from a distance as someone else is a father to his daughter and gets to be there for one of her milestones in life.

_Dean sat in alone his dad’s car, parked across the street from an elementary school bustling with activity. It was the first day of school and both kids and parents alike were milling about as they tried to figure out where they were supposed to be in all of the commotion of first day activity. If anyone had seen him, a man in his early twenties sitting alone watching a bunch of school aged kids, they probably would have taken him for a pervert of some sort. Lucky for him, his entire life had trained him how to blend in and not stand out from a crowd and now nobody noticed him there or questioned his presence._

_Even with the overabundance of people in the crowd, he was still able to pick out the people he was looking for. There, in the middle of all the hustle and bustle, a man who looked a little too old to blend in with the rest of the parents was holding the hand of a young girl as he lead her through the crowd. Even from this distance, Dean could see how tightly she was holding on to his hand as she looked around nervously. It was her first day of Kindergarten and it was obvious that she didn’t want to go, didn’t want to be separated from her father. Dean felt a pang of both regret and envy in his chest as he thought about the fact that he should have been the one walking her into the building for her first day of school._

_Once the two figures had disappeared from his sight, Dean put the car in drive and pulled away as he struggled not to give in to his emotions. Driving across town he pulled into a familiar driveway and parked the car, taking a moment to gather his thoughts and compose himself before heading up to plant himself on the front porch. Half an hour later, that’s where Bobby found him when he came back from getting Harley settled in at the school. Heading into the house, he nodded for Dean to follow him and grabbed a bottle of beer to hand to the younger man before saying anything._

_“Your dad know you’re here, boy? With his car, no less.”_

_Dean snorted softly and shook his head as he pressed the bottle to his lips and downed half of it in one breath. “Nah, he’s off on a bender somewhere. You know how he’s been since Sammy bailed to go to school. He’ll resurface in a day or two, I figured I had a little bit of time to swing by up here in the meantime.”_

_“You best hope you get back to wherever the two of you have been staying before he does. He finds out you took off without letting him know and there will be hell to pay.” The older man shook his head as he looked at the boy, now man, that he’d helped raise. They both knew the reason Dean had come by, today of all days, and he didn’t see any need to tiptoe around it. “She did great today, you would have been proud of her. Bit nervous at first, didn’t want me to leave, but by the time I did go she had made five new friends, including some boy. Not sure I like that one.”_

_Dean just smiled softly and laughed a little. It was crazy to him to think that his baby girl was in school already, time was going by too fast. He wasn’t ready to think about things like boys. “Sounds like she’s already going to be a social butterfly. I wish I could have been there. I should have been there, I’m her father. But...”_

_Bobby just shook his head and laid his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault, son. You’ve done the best you could for that little girl.”_

_“Best I could? What...a couple hundred dollars a month? Cheap Christmas presents from ‘Santa’?” Dean snorted softly and rolled his eyes. That wasn’t what he wanted to give his daughter, not by a long shot. It wasn’t what she deserved from him, either. “That’s nothing. That’s a bare minimum. I should be there for her, dammit. She’s my daughter, I should have been being a father to her, that’s what she deserves. But nobody ever gave me that chance.”_

_“Yours wasn’t an easy situation to be in, boy. Father at seventeen, living in this life; even if John hadn’t made the decision for you, you never would have been able to keep her. Here she’s got a stable home, she’s safe. Could have been a lot worse. At least she’s with family, she’s somewhere you know who she’s with and you can see her. You know I’ll never keep her from you. A lot of people don’t have that luxury.”_

_“I don’t want to just see her, Bobby. I want her with me. I want to raise her. I want her to know me; and not just as her Uncle John’s son or as a big brother figure. I want her to see me and know I’m her dad.”_

_Bobby looked at the younger man with wide eyes and shook his head. It wasn’t that he was opposed to Harley knowing the truth, he’d always known she would have to be told eventually, but he knew it had to be done at the right time. “Dean...you can’t just spring that on a kid. Right now, to her, I’m dad. She’s only five, she wouldn’t understand if we tried to tell her that you’re dad and I’m just some guy that took her in. We sure as hell can’t tell her when you’re only here for the day. Can you imagine laying that kind of information on a kid and then you up and taking off on her?”_

_Dean hung his head a little, feeling everything deflate out of him, because he knew Bobby was right. It wouldn’t be fair to Harley to dump that kind of thing on her and then take off to go back with his dad, nor would it be fair to Bobby to leave him with the mess it would create. It was probably selfish of him to even want to tell her, born more from his desire to be a father to her than from wanting her to know the truth for any kind of beneficial reason. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Harley needed to know the truth. That she needed to be told he was her real father, and sooner rather than later. “Yeah, okay, you’re right. She’s too young, yet. But...we gotta tell her eventually, Bobby. I don’t want her to never know me. When Dad made me leave her here, I never expected it to be this long. I always thought it would just be for a year or two. That once I was old enough to make it on my own, I’d come back for her. I never meant for it to go this long.”_

_“Don’t worry, boy, we’ll tell her eventually. When she’s old enough. You and I will tell her the whole story, together. Just give it a few years.”_

_“Yeah, I guess. But, only a few years. Just until she’s old enough to understand. I’ve already waited five years, I guess I can wait a few more.”_


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The time has come for Dean to have a heart-to-heart with his daughter. For the first time, Harley finds out why she was raised by Bobby instead of Dean, how she reminds Dean of her mother, and where her grandparents are.

Standing in front of the door to Harley’s bedroom, Dean couldn’t help but feel a little bit of fear coursing through his body. His heart was racing and his hands were sweaty as he thought about what he was going to say to her. This was a conversation he had been waiting to have for sixteen years and now that the reality of it was within grasp, he was panicking. Taking in a deep breath, he tried to give himself a mental pep talk as he brought his hand up to knock softly at her door. Hearing her voice calling out to come inside, he swung the door open and peeked his head into the room. “Harley? Is it okay if I come in?”

Harley looked up from the book she was reading and tried not to show any emotion as she shrugged her shoulders. She was still feeling a bit apprehensive around him and now she was even more nervous, knowing that Sam had probably gone to him with all of her deepest confessions. She could just imagine what Dean must think of her, and how pathetic he must find her to be right now. “Yeah, sure, I guess.”

Walking into her room, Dean looked around for a minute before deciding that sitting at her desk was his best option. He didn’t want to stand up and hover over her, which would only serve to make them both nervous, but he also didn’t want to assume that she would be okay with him sitting on her bed. The two of them had had a bit of a strained relationship thus far, though he did feel as if it was improving somewhat, and he didn’t want to assume anything about what her comfort level with him was at this point. Taking in a deep breath he looked around at all of the things she had brought with her to decorate the room as her own, his eyes going everywhere but towards her as he tried to get his nerves together before finally manning up and looking directly at her. “Sammy told me the two of you had a talk.”

Biting down softly on her lip, Harley’s eyes flitted back to the book in her hands when he addressed her. Though she really hadn’t expected otherwise, part of her had been hoping that Sam had never mentioned their conversation to his older brother. In retrospect she realized how stupid she had been and how the two older men were going to wind up looking at her as some kind of angst filled, drama inducing teenager. Things were comfortable for her with the brothers now and she didn’t want to rock the boat or give either of them any reason to want to get rid of her again. “Yeah, it was silly. I was just a little crazy or something. No big deal.”

“No, Harley, I think it is a big deal. If you’re feeling upset or worried about anything, then it’s a big deal to me.” Leaning forward in the chair, Dean rested his elbows on his knees as he looked over at the teen. He could sense that she was nervous and, hell, he couldn’t blame her. She was sixteen years old and had no clue why her life had been flipped upside down not that long ago. Meanwhile he was a grown ass adult who knew the entire story and he was scared to death to have this conversation. “Harley, I know none of this has been easy on you. I know you’ve got questions and concerns, and they’re all legitimate ones, I think it’s time we have a talk, don’t you?”

Harley could feel her heart speed up in her chest and for a moment it felt as if it was going to beat straight through her ribs. Of course she had questions, who wouldn’t in her situation, but she wasn’t sure if she was ready for the answers. Did it really matter why he didn’t want her and would it change anything for her to know? What if his feelings hadn’t changed any and he told her that he still didn’t want her, didn’t want to be her father, and he was only doing this because he had no choice? Worst case scenario, he was going to kick her out, send her back to live with Jody. That’s what he had wanted in the first place, but she had insisted on coming with him, maybe he was finally going to tell her it was time for her to leave. “I...I don’t have any questions. I just...I’m okay with things. You don’t have to explain yourself to me, you don’t owe me anything. I won’t bring it up again, to you or Sam, I promise. Just...please don’t make me leave. I want to stay here. With you, and with Uncle Sam, I don’t want to go anywhere.”

Dean’s face fell a little as he listened to her talk. He knew Sam had mentioned that she thought he didn’t want her, but he didn’t realize just how deep her insecurities seemed to go. Shaking his head a little, he pushed up out of the chair and moved over to sit next to her, reaching out to lay his hand on her arm. “Harley...I’m not going to make you leave. I don't want you to leave. I want you here, with your family, where you belong. Why would you think I would ever ask you to leave?”

“You never wanted me to begin with. You just got stuck with me because my dad died and there was nowhere else for me to go. You wanted me to stay with Jody, but I pushed to come here, but now I’m causing problems and asking things that I have no right to ask. But, I won’t ask anymore questions, I swear. It-It’s none of my business, I know that. I shouldn’t be asking. I should just be grateful for the life I had. My dad was good to me, he was a good dad, I shouldn’t be questioning things or wondering things. It’s not fair to his memory to question anything else.”

“Harley, hey…look at me.” Reaching a hand out, he cupped her chin and turned her face up so he could look at her. When he saw the way her eyes were watering as she held back tears, he could feel his heart breaking in his chest. All he’d ever wanted was for her to be safe and to be happy, and it seemed like he was failing miserably at keeping her happy. “Sweetheart, your dad loved you and he knew you loved him. Having questions isn’t disrespecting him or his memory, he would be okay with you wanting to know everything. I promise. It’s…something he and I talked about, more than once. He always meant for you to know the truth. It just…was never the right time. But you don’t have to feel guilty about having questions and you never, NEVER, have to worry about asking me anything. Anything you want to know, I’ll tell you Harley.”

“Why didn't you want me, Dean? Why did you give me to my dad?” The words came tumbling out of her mouth before she could stop them. A pang of guilt shot through her for even thinking it, let alone asking it. She didn’t want to seems as if she hadn’t been happy with her dad or that he had been anything less than a good dad, but she still couldn’t help but wonder why she had been given up as a baby. She wanted to know if he had ever actually cared about her. “Do you even want me now, or am I just here because you had no choice?”

“Harley, sweetheart, it was never like that. It was never about me wanting you or not wanting you. I always wanted you, but…it was complicated. I couldn’t keep you.” Dean sighed a little, not knowing where to begin. There was so much she needed to know, but he didn’t want to overwhelm her with any of it. “I was only seventeen when you were born, Harley, in no position to try and raise you by myself. If it had been up to me, you’d have been with me the whole time, but…my dad wouldn’t allow it. He was the one who made me give you to Bobby.”

“Uncle John?” Harley frowned as she tried to process this new information. John Winchester hadn’t come around often when she was younger, but he had always treated her well when he did. It threw her for a bit of a loop to think that he was the reason she had been given away, especially knowing now that he was her grandfather. “Why didn’t he want me?”

“My dad…he wasn’t perfect. After my mom died, he changed. Finding what killed her, it consumed him. I was his second in command. When your mom got pregnant, he was afraid it was going to be a distraction for me.” Moving next to Harley, he wrapped an arm around her as he talked to her, finally telling her the truth about her past. “Then…your mom died in childbirth. He knew it was dangerous for you to be with us. Not only a danger to you, but to all of us. He didn’t want that liability, so…he talked to Bobby. Convinced him to take you and raise you. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was something. I never wanted it to be as long term as it ended up, but…life happened. Just know that I always wanted you, Harley.”

Harley bit down on her bottom lip as she listened to him talk. It eased her mind a little to know that she’d never been unwanted, at least not by her biological father, though it stung to know that her grandfather didn’t want her around. That was going to take a little bit of time to wrap her head around and it wasn’t something she really wanted to think about right now. Laying her head against Dean’s chest she took a minute to try and gather her thoughts, to figure out what she wanted to ask next, before she finally spoke up. “What was my mom like? Dad never talked about her. I suppose it makes sense now, he wouldn’t really have known much. Can you tell me about her?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I can tell you anything you’d want to know.” Dean smiled softly as he gave Harley a small squeeze and started telling her about Katie. It had been awhile since he had thought about her and it felt good to talk about her and to tell their daughter what she had been like. “Your mom was badass. Her parents were hunters, just like all of us. She’d been raised in the life and could hold her own against anything. You never would have known it by looking at her, though. She was a tiny little thing, just like you. You remind me a lot of her, actually.”

“I do? How? I mean...I can hunt and all, Daddy taught me. But, I don’t know if I’m all that good at it. I always did better at helping him with research, that was my thing.”

“Yeah, you get that from Sammy. The two of you got the brains in this family.” He chuckled softly as he looked down at his daughter, only to realize she was staring up at him and taking in every last thing he was saying to her. “When I say you remind me of her, I mean...you look just like her. Your eyes, your mouth, it’s like looking at a picture of Katie.”

“Really?” Harley smiled softly when he told her that she looked like her mother. This was the first time she had heard anything about the woman who had given birth to her, and it made her happy to know that she shared traits with her mom. Her dad had never told her anything, so she had always wondered if she looked like her mom or acted like her. If there was anything she’d inherited from her at all. Now, she was also curious to know if she’d inherited anything from Dean; but that was a conversation for another time, she still wasn’t quite ready to accept the fact that things similarities she’d always seen between her and her dad weren’t actually inherited from him at all. “What about my grandparents? I mean, I know Uncle John was my grandpa...and I know your mom died when Uncle Sam was a baby, but...what about my mom’s parents? Can I meet them?”

A soft sigh escaped from Dean’s lips and his face turned down into a frown as he looked down at his daughter. “They...they’re not around anymore, sweetheart. They died, when you were just little. Your grandma, she never got over losing your mom and she turned to alcohol to try and numb the pain. She...she drank a little too much one night. Slipped into a coma and never woke up. You were probably about six months old at the time. Then your grandpa, we lost him on a hunt gone really wrong. That was probably a month or so after your third birthday. You knew him when you were little, he would come around to see you every few months or so. He was with you about a week before he died. He loved you, Harley, both of your grandparents did. From what Bobby always told me, you loved your grandpa, too.”

“Oh. I-I don’t remember him. I must have been too little…” Harley frowned a little as she tried to wrap her head around the fact that she had no grandparents left, but that she had once known her grandfather...she just couldn’t remember him. Sighing softly, she laid her head against Dean and closed her eyes as she tried not to think too much about it. “Can you tell me more about my mom, please?”

“Anything you want, sweetheart.”

By the time he was done reminiscing about Katie, he realized Harley hadn’t said anything in awhile. Looking down at her, he couldn’t help but smile when he saw that she had fallen asleep. He leaned down and kissed the top of her head softly hoping that, even if things weren’t quite perfect between them yet, maybe he had at least put a few of her fears to rest. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things never seem to go well for long for the Winchester’s. Dean and Harley were in a good place, but then all hell breaks loose for Sam, quite literally, which doesn’t go over well with Uncle Sam’s girl.

Dean had hoped that by talking to his daughter, explaining to her why he hadn’t been the one to raise her, that maybe it would help improve their relationship a little. In some ways it did, Harley didn’t seem so distant with him any longer and she seemed more willing to talk to him, now. But they still weren’t what he would consider to be close. While she didn’t actively avoid him, and would even seek him out to talk once in awhile, she still seemed to be closer to her uncle than she was to him. While Dean was glad she had someone she could talk to, he was envious of his younger brother; he knew that Harley was never going to look at him as a dad, Bobby had long ago filled that role for her, but he still wanted to play some part in her life.

Harley’s bond with Sam also made him dread what he had to do now. He had gotten a phone call about his brother and he knew that she was not going to take it well when he told her. Hanging up the phone, he looked over to the bed she was sitting on in the old cabin they were currently squatting in. She must have sensed something was up, because she looked up at him and frowned.

“Dean? What’s up, is something wrong?”

Taking in a deep breath, Dean walked over and sat down next to her, looking everywhere but at her as he tried to choose his words wisely. “Harley, we need to go to the hospital. It’s Sam. He...was hit by a car.”

Harley’s face drained of all color and she felt her heart drop into her stomach. She quickly studied Dean’s face, trying to gauge the gravity of the situation based on what she saw there but, unfortunately, the older man had always been good at keeping his emotions under wraps. It was probably for the best, because Harley knew that she had to be panicking enough for the both of them. The only thought that kept running through her head was that she couldn’t do this, she couldn’t lose someone she loved again. “Is Uncle Sam okay? He-he’s not… He’s…”

“I don’t know how bad he’s hurt, Harley. He’s alive, and they said he’s stable, but we still need to go. You need to come with me, sweetheart. You don’t have to go in and see him, but I’m not leaving you alone right now, okay?”

Not trusting her voice to respond, she just nodded her head as she stood up from the bed; her legs feeling as weak and shaky as jello. Despite the fact that Dean had told her that her uncle was stable, her mind kept going to a worse case scenario. All she could think about was the possibility that she was going to lose her uncle, the one person she had left that she felt like she could really trust. Dean must have seen it written all over her face because he reached over and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her against his side in an attempt to comfort her.

“He’s going to be okay, Harley. Try not to go to the worst case scenario, okay? Come on, I know you’ll feel better once you see him.”

Harley just nodded again and pushed away from him, forcing a weak smile as she grabbed her jacket off of the bed. She didn’t want comforted right now, not by him at least. All she could think about was seeing her uncle and making sure he was okay. Sam was the one person she felt closest to right now and no matter how much Dean might try and reassure her, she wasn’t going to be okay until she saw him with her own two eyes. “C-can we just go now? I want to see Uncle Sam.”

Unfortunately for Harley, getting to see her uncle and reassure herself wasn’t quite as simple as getting to the hospital and being taken to him. As soon as Dean had told the receptionist who they were there for, he had been informed that he wasn’t allowed to see his brother at this time. No matter how much Dean tried to push, no matter how many people he tried to question, nobody would give him any further information other than to say they couldn’t see Sam right now and that Dr. Kadinsky would be out soon to speak to them.

Harley could feel herself starting to panic, she just knew that her uncle was dead and they were waiting for the doctor to come break the news to them, before taking Dean back to identify the corpse. Her heart was pounding in her chest and her lungs were closing off and part of her wondered if this was a heart attack felt like, but at this point in time it wouldn’t surprise her if she had one from the stress. Dean must have noticed her slowing melting down, because he lead her over to a nearby chair and sat her down, with the firm instruction to ‘breathe, damn it.’ Once she managed to get her body back under control, she looked up at him with fear filled eyes. “You told me he’d be okay, but you lied to me. If he was okay, we could see him, but we can’t. So he’s not okay. He’s probably dead and they won’t tell us and now I’m never going to see him again and…”

Dean cut her off by squatting down in front of her and laying his hand over hers. “Harley, sweetheart, breathe. Calm down. I’m going to go find out what’s going on. You stay here and try not to overthink things, okay? I’ll be right back.”

He gave her a kiss to the top of her head before standing up and walking down the hall in search of the doctor they were told they needed to talk to about Sam. Harley could hear him down the hallway and had she not already been crying, she would have been laughing at the thought of the poor soul who was on the receiving end of that rant. Normally she wouldn't be one for intimidating people to get what she wants, but in this instance she didn’t care. That was her uncle laying in this hospital somewhere; she wanted to get to him and she was on board with whatever it was that it took to get them to him. If she thought it would help she would have been in there right alongside Dean giving hell to anyone trying to keep them away from Sam.

It felt like years, but was probably only a few minutes, before Harley was looking up to the sound of heavy boot steps echoing down the hallway. Dean was walking towards her, a doctor alongside him, with a grim look on his face and she felt her breath catch in her throat. This was it. This was the part where she was going to be told that her uncle was dead, that she had lost the only person she had left in life. She was still holding her breath when Dean came over and grabbed onto her hand and pulled her up, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. “He’s going to be okay, kiddo. Physically at least. But he’s having some problems, so he’s in a locked ward to get some help. I’m going to see him now, do you want to come?”

Harley felt her eyes getting wider as he talked and she slowly nodded her head. She didn’t know what kind of problem her uncle was having, or why he might be in a locked unit, but it didn’t matter to her. All she wanted was to see her uncle, to know he was okay. She followed Dean and the doctor through the maze of a hospital, thinking to herself that she would get lost if she ever had to spent any significant amount of time there, until the doctor got them buzzed into a unit was was set slightly apart from the main hospital building. Harley could feel herself growing apprehensive as they walked through this new unit of the hospital. All around her people were either yelling or sitting in chairs staring blankly into space, and it scared her to think of her uncle in a state like that.

When they stopped in front of a room, Harley stared through the barred window at Sam as Dean and the doctor talked behind her. He was laying on the bed, looking more exhausted than she had ever seen him, staring at some unseen entity in the room. She could feel her heart constrict in her chest seeing him like that. While she knew he had been having a hard time lately, there had been several hushed conversations when the brothers had thought she was asleep, he had done a good job of hiding from her just how badly he was doing. Seeing him like this, after he had become a rock to her as she dealt with everything going on in her life, was killing her.

Harley felt a hand on her shoulder and she looked back to see Dean standing there, gesturing for her to go into the room. Taking in a deep breath, she opened the door and stepped inside tentatively. “Uncle Sam?”

The figure on the bed looked over to the two people who had just entered his room and tried to offer a weak smile, but the gesture fell short. “Hey, kiddo. Why the frown?”

With a shrug of her shoulders, Harley walked across the room and sat down on the bed next to her uncle. As soon as he was close enough to touch she reached out and gently touched one of the bruises that had formed on his face. “It’s nothing, Uncle Sam. I’m okay. Just worried about you, that’s all. You scared me.”

“I’m sorry, kiddo. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’ll be okay...I think. If not, you’re in good hands, you’ll be fine.”

“Hey, don’t talk like that.” Both Harley and Sam had almost forgotten Dean was in the room, until they heard his deep voice coming from the doorway. “We’re gonna figure this out, we’ll get you fixed up in no time.”

Harley heard her uncle let out a soft snort as he turned his head away from the two of them before nodding his head a little. “Yeah, okay. Better in no time.”

“Don’t give up, Sammy. There’s got to be a way to fix it out there somewhere and we’re going to find it.” Dean came over and laid his hand on Harley’s shoulder, giving it a soft squeeze. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s let him rest for now, while we get to work.”

On their way back to the motel, Dean filled Harley in on everything that had been going on with Sam. From the time he had been without a soul, to the wall Death had built in his mind to protect him from his memories from hell, to Castiel having destroyed the wall. Now, her uncle was being plagued by hallucinations of Lucifer himself and had been awake for days because of it. The information was all a bit much to take in for Harley and she could feel herself beginning to panic a little at the thought of it all. For the first time since moving in with her family, she was starting to think that maybe she would have been better off staying back with Jody. This was all high level stuff, far beyond anything she had ever done with her dad. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for this life, at least not with the two men she currently found herself with.

Once they got back to the motel Harley found herself with a list of her dad’s contacts and Sam’s cell, making calls to anyone and everyone they could think of to try and find help for Sam. Harley wasn’t even sure of what they were looking for or what to ask for, but so far everyone she talked to told her that they couldn’t help. Finally, just when she was ready to give up, she struck gold. Or, at least she thought she did.

“Hey Dean? I think I’ve got something. Lead on a faith healer who seems to be the real deal. Might be able to help us out. Worth a shot, right?” She handed over the phone to Dean then sat and listened as she talked to the hunter she had managed to get ahold of. Normally she wouldn’t eavesdrop on someone’s phone conversation, but this was important to her and she wanted to know what was going on. She had no idea what, if anything, could be done for Sam and she wanted involved in every last detail. When Dean finally finished, she looked up at him hopefully. “So, can he help us? Does he know someone who can fix Uncle Sam?”

Dean sighed softly as he looked at his daughter. At this point in time, he didn’t know if anything could actually help his brother, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. She’d been through enough already, the last thing he wanted to do was make things worse for her. Right now he was determined to find a way to help Sam just as much for Harley’s sake as for Sam’s. “I don’t know, sweetheart. It sounds legit, but I won’t know anything until I check it out. I don’t know what I’m getting into with this one, so I need you to stay behind while I sort it out.”

“But…” She tried to argue with him, not wanting to be left behind. This was her uncle and if there was ever a case she needed to be involved in, this was it. Before she could get any further, however, she was cut off.

“No, Harley. I know you want to help out, but I need to focus on Sam right now. You can be the biggest help by staying here, so I don’t have to worry about you. I won’t be gone long, I promise. You hold down the fort here.”

Harley thought about arguing with him, trying to convince him that she needed to go with him. Had she not seen the look on his face, she probably would have argued, but she knew that he had already made up his mind and there would be no winning the argument. “Okay,, okay. I’ll stay here. But you have to promise you’ll call me. Let me know what’s going on. I just...I want Uncle Sam back.”

“I know you do, sweetheart. That’s what I’m going to make happen. Just be patient and I’ll get this all fixed.”

It was hard for Harley to watch Dean walk out the door while she was left behind. Everything in her wanted to go with him, to help him find a way to fix her uncle. But she knew he was right, he needed to focus on Sam without her being around as a distraction or liability. She could hold her own if she needed to be but he didn’t know that and now was not the time to prove it to him. So, as much as she hated it, she would stay behind and sit this one out.

The problem with being left behind was that she quickly started getting cabin fever. She always hated being useless, she wanted to be helpful, and right now was the most useless she had ever felt. She had tried to go and visit her uncle, but was turned away because she was too young to be there by herself. So, all she could do was sit in the motel and worry about both Dean and her uncle.

Even the frequent calls she got from Dean to updated her on his progress didn’t do much to quell her fears. She knew that he had found the faith healer and he was someone who could help, though Dean was very vague on the details. She knew that he had run into some demon problems but that he had dealt with them and now he had back up; again being vague with details. The last update had been that they were almost to the hospital that Sam was in and if things went well they would be able to fix him and get him out. But now it had been close to twenty four hours since she had last heard from him and she was starting to get worried, her mind automatically going through all of the worst case scenarios. The only explanation she could think of was that things had gone wrong and now both of them were gone, dead or worse, once again leaving her alone in the world.

Harley was just reaching for the phone to call Jody to put out an SOS when she heard something outside her motel room door. Reaching for the gun Dean had left for her, she moved to a position that would allow her to defend herself while also giving her a clear shot out of the room so that she wouldn’t be trapped. Somehow she kept her composure despite her heart beating so fast in her chest that she was sure that who or what ever was on the other side of the door could hear it.

She was standing there; gun raised, aimed, and ready to shoot when the door opened to reveal Dean standing on the other side. The look on his face when he realized he was staring at the business end of a pistol, pointed straight at him, was an odd mixture between fear and pride. “Whoa there, sweetheart. Don’t shoot. It’s just me.”

“Dean! Oh my God, don’t do that to me. I had no idea who was coming in the room. You didn’t call me to tell me you were on your way back.” Lowering the gun in her hand, she quickly slipped the safety back into place and laid the gun back on the bedside before turning back to him, an expectant look on her face. “Why are you back? Was the faith guy any good? Is Uncle Sam okay?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him yourself?” Dean got a wide grin on his face as he opened the door the rest of the way and Sam peeked his head around the door frame.

“Uncle Sam!” Harley launched herself at her uncle to wrap her arms around his neck in a hug. Sam’s arms slide around her body and squeezed tightly as he lifted her up off the ground. “How? Are you okay now? You’re all fixed?”

“Yeah, kiddo, I’m all fixed. We’ll fill you in on the hows later, but right now I’m going to get some sleep. All you need to know is that I’m okay and I’m going to be from now on.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harley accompanies Dean and her Uncle on a hunt, only to have things become more personal than any of them ever could have imagined.

After Sam got out of the hospital, Harley became extra clingy to him, never wanting to let him out of her sight for a minute. If they were eating a meal, she was sitting right next to him at the table. If there was research to be done, she would be close by leafing through a book of her own. Part of her was afraid that if she was away for him too long, if she didn’t know where he was at any given moment, then a worst case scenario would come to fruition and she would lose her uncle for good. She’d had enough loss, and enough close calls, she didn’t think she could handle any more at this point in time.

Harley was sitting on the roof of the old beat up car that Dean and her uncle were currently using, scarfing down her third bacon double cheeseburger, when Dean got a call on his cell phone. Hearing him tell Sam that it was some old friend of theirs who apparently had some of her dad’s things made her face turn into a deep frown. Yes, she knew her dad had been a go-to resource in the hunter community, but that didn’t mean she liked to think of his belongings being scattered to the wind. All it took was hearing that she could get more of his stuff back and she was hopping down from the roof of the car and brushing the crumbs off of her clothes. “Someone has my dad’s stuff? What are we waiting for...let’s go get it!”

When they arrived in California, Harley had wanted to go with the brothers to meet this woman who had apparently known her dad, but her uncle had told her she needed to stay behind on this one. She’d tried to argue, of course, but as per usual the two men won the battle. The only consolation was that she had convinced them to drop her off at a beach to pass the time rather than leaving her in some nasty motel room while they did whatever it was they were going to do. While they were off, probably having a better meal than she’d had in days, she slipped off her shoes and walked barefoot in the sand and had there not been a distinct chill in the air she would have waded into the water; but she didn’t figure that Dean nor her uncle would be impressed if she died of hypothermia. Just listening to the sound of the waves crashing onto the beach over and over would have to be enough to satisfy her, for now. By the time the two men showed up to pick her up a few hours later, Harley felt more at peace than she had in months. The quiet solitude of the beach had allowed her to sit and think for awhile and try to come to terms with everything that had happened in her life as of late. While she still wasn’t completely where she needed to be, and still had some things to work out, she felt like she was getting there. Like maybe, eventually, she would be able to fully trust her family and to feel as if she belonged with them.

When she heard the car pull up behind her, she turned around with a sigh when she realized she would have to leave her new found sanctuary. Grabbing her shoes in her hand she wandered slowly to where the two men were waiting for her, smirking a little to herself as she thought about how it was a good thing Dean wasn’t currently driving the Impala. She was fairly certain that if she tried to get into his precious car with sand all over her feet, it would cause the man to have a stroke. As she approached the car, she brushed as much sand off her feet as she could before crawling into the backseat. “You got my dad’s stuff? Can we go back home, now?”

Sam turned around to look at her, frowning a little as he shook his head. “Sorry, kiddo. Our friend we were supposed to meet never showed. We know she was working a case here in town, so we’re going to head to her motel room and check it out. See if we can find anything.”

Harley huffed softly as she curled into a ball in the backseat and picked up the book she had abandoned when she got dropped off. She knew the life of a hunter, she understood it better than anyone else her age would, but that didn’t mean that sometimes she just wanted a break. To be able to work on her school work from the comfort of her own home or to sleep in a bed that hadn’t used by God only knew who for God only knew what. She tried not to make a face as she looked up at her uncle. “Is this gonna be a high research case? Because if not...I’ve got, like, five assignments due by the end of this week, so…”

“I don’t know, kiddo. But you just focus on schoolwork if you need to. We’ve got this one handled, okay?”

For the first time in, well, ever since she’d been with the brothers, Harley didn’t argue when she got left behind in a motel room. She had helped the two men go through the research their friend had left behind long enough to find out there was a local haunted house connected to some disappearances. Once she had sent them on their way, Harley flopped down on the bed and stuck in her earbuds to listen to music while she worked on her homework assignments. She managed to get three of the five assignments done with no problem at all and decided she was going to reward herself with a bit of a nap. She had just started to drift off when she heard the door to the motel room open. Rolling over onto her side, she pulled out her earbuds as she looked at the two men walking through the door. “You find her, okay? Time to go home?”

“I wish, kiddo. We came up with a whole lot of nothing.” Sam just shook his head as he walked over to grab a stack of papers and he began to shuffle through them as Dean walked past both of them and into the bathroom. Only moments later, Harley heard the water turning on in the bathroom and she looked over at her uncle and raised an eyebrow at him.

“Please tell me he’s not going to shower with the door wide open. I don’t think you two can afford the therapy bill for the therapy I may end up needing if he does.”

Sam glanced up from the papers in his hand and looked over at his niece, laughing softly. “Don’t worry, Harley. He’ll make sure he’s covered before he comes out. He knows you’re out here.”

Harley just stared at Sam with a blank look on her face, before shaking her head and picking up a book to bury her nose in it. She wasn’t taking a chance of seeing something she didn’t want to, so she figured it was best to make sure all of her attention was on something safe. The entire time she was reading, she could hear Sam talking to Dean as he read through the papers in his hands, but she wasn’t paying attention to anything he was saying. She was taking a self imposed break from this hunt and she knew if she listened to anything her uncle was saying, she would end up inserting herself into the case whether she wanted to or not. While she heard the tone of his voice, something she was slowly starting to find comforting, she paid no attention to the words. Even when she heard Dean calling him into the bathroom, she barely even looked up from her book. It wasn’t until she heard Dean asking who was there, almost sounding panicked, that her ears perked up a little and she looked up from her reading with a frown.

Sitting the book aside on the bed, she got up and walked towards the bathroom with a frown. To the best of her knowledge, herself and the two brothers were the only ones in the room, and she hadn’t heard anything out of the ordinary to suggest that anyone else had come in. So, she couldn’t figure out why Dean thought anyone was there or was asking who was there. She got to the bathroom door and looked around her uncle just in time to see her dad’s name write itself on the mirror and she felt her knees buckling under her. “Daddy?”


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All Harley has wanted is to have her dad back. Now, it seems she may get her wish. Kind of. But what happens when things don’t go quite as planned?

Though her legs were shaky and she felt them giving out beneath her, she felt Dean’s arms wrap around her and hold her tight to keep in an upright position. As she stared at the writing on the mirror and she tried to come to terms with what it implied, she could feel her entire body shaking uncontrollably, the only thing even remotely keeping her grounded was the feeling of being held tight and a soothing voice in her ear telling her everything was going to be okay. She felt herself , being lead out of the bathroom and somewhere in the back of her mind she registered Dean’s voice saying that they had to get back to the house. Pulling herself away from him slightly, she looked up at his face. “I’m going with you.”

“Harley, I don’t think…”

“No, Dean, you don’t get to leave me here. I’m going.” She looked back at the open door of the bathroom and pointed back at the mirror. “That’s my dad trying to communicate with us. I’m going, you’re not talking me out of it and you’re not leaving me here. If you try and leave me behind, I’ll find my own way there. If I have to hitchhike, I will. I’m not kidding.”

Dean took in a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. He saw the look of resolve on her face and knew there was going to be no arguing with her and no talking her out of it. “Okay, fine. We’ll take you. BUT, you do not leave my side. Not even for a second. Bobby might be there, but I don’t know what else is there. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

At that point in time, she would have gone along with anything if it meant she could tag along, so she silently nodded her head in agreement. So much for taking a break from a case, she was more involved in this one than she had ever been involved before. If her dad was still around in some form, if there was even the slimmest chance that she could see him again, she had to take it. She nodded her head sharply, indicating that she would stick by his side if that was what he wanted, and walked out the door and waited by the car before he could change his mind.

When they got to the house, Harley kept her promise to stay right by Dean’s side. As they walked inside, she was right next to him, though her eyes were darting all over the place trying to take in her surroundings. When a camcorder slid across the floor in front of them, Harley had reached for it to pick it up, but Dean had stopped her and held her back, claiming that he didn’t want her touching anything they didn’t know where it came from. He had then turned right around and picked it up himself, which caused her to huff in annoyance. Sometimes she wondered if he stopped to realize that if something was too dangerous for her to do, then he probably shouldn’t do it either. She was every bit as trained as he was and, sure, she hadn’t been hunting as long as he had...but she did know what she was doing.

Harley stood behind Dean and her uncle, watching over Dean’s arm as the two men watched the video that had been recorded and realized that their friend was indeed trapped in the house, as a ghost. As the two brothers searched for any sign of their friend, Harley was busy looking around herself, only she was looking for anything out of place in the hopes of finding some sign of her dad being nearby. He was here, somewhere, she knew it. He had communicated with them, now...she just wanted to see him. To tell him she loved him, one more time.

When the ghost of a young woman appeared in front of them, Harley jumped a little and before she could act, Dean had quickly grabbed her and moved her behind him. She couldn’t help but roll her eyes at him a little, almost pointing out to him that he was overreacting, before the spirit in front of them began to speak and try to explain to them what was going on. Before she could tell them everything, however, she had disappeared into a ball of flame. Harley’s eyes went wide and she jumped back a little at that. It was the first time she had ever seen a ghost spontaneously combust without someone salting and burning their bones.

While Harley was still trying to get over the shock of the ghost bonfire, she heard the two brothers discussing what she had been telling them and deciding that they needed to go find the body of the man who had run the brothel and burn his bones. As the men moved to leave the house, Harley stood her ground as she stared after them. “But...my dad. He’s here somewhere. We can’t leave, yet. We have to find him!”

Dean stopped dead in his tracks as he looked back at his daughter. He understood where she was coming from, he really did. He wanted to find Bobby just as much as she did, but there was more to all of this than just Bobby’s ghost. This was still a job and they had to finish it before they could take care of any personal business. Walking back over to her, he laid his hand on her shoulders and stooped down a little to look her in the eye. “We’re going to find him, to communicate with him again. I promise you, kiddo. But, we’ve got to finish this job, first. As soon as we’re done, we’re coming right back here, okay?”

“O-okay. I guess.” Harley nodded her head slowly, though her eyes were shining with tears. She didn’t like the idea of leaving before she had seen and talked to her dad. But, realistically, she knew Dean was right. Here dad would never approve of leaving a job unfinished. With one last glance around the room, she slowly trudged behind the two older men and climbed into the back seat of the car. As they drove away, she looked out of the back of the car to one of the windows of the house, wishing she’d been allowed to stay behind until Dean and her uncle came back. She didn’t want to leave, something kept gnawing at her, telling her to stay behind, but she just chalked it up to missing her dad.

Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she shoved her earbuds into her ears and turned on her favorite music as she willed herself not to cry. She refused to let either of the brothers see how upset and shaken was by the turn in events. Part of her sometimes still felt as if she was on unsolid ground with them and she was afraid of saying or doing anything that would tip the scales or cause them to give up on her and send her away. While she realistically knew that they would understand how she felt about the idea of seeing her dad, she didn’t want to hurt either of their feelings or push them away from her.

Harley was so lost in her music, and her thoughts, that she was oblivious to anything going on around her. It wasn’t until she felt the car suddenly accelerate that she was pulled out of her own little world and she looked up just in time to see yet another ghost, this one grabbing the wheel of the car and sending it out of control. Thankfully Dean was able to keep the car under control long enough to get it to a safe stop and both he and Sam stumbled out of the car, while Harley tried to stop herself from shaking long enough to be of some use. By the time she had regained her composure and climbed out of the car, still on shaking legs, the ghost was gone and Dean hurried back to the car, grabbing onto her and asking her if she was alright. She was barely able to nod her head and give a shaky ‘yes’ as a response before he was pulling her against him and wrapping her in a tight embrace.

As soon as the bones were burned, the trio headed back to the abandoned house to see if they could find anything more. Harley was a ball of nerves, hoping that she was going to finally see her dad again and scared to death that it had all been a false alarm. That maybe there was someone, or something, else out there trying to pass as her dad. After everything she had gone through in the past few months, Harley wasn’t sure if she could take that kind of disappointment. She needed to see her dad again, even if it was only for a few minutes. She needed to tell him goodbye and to make sure that he knew she loved him.

Walking into the house behind the two men, still sticking close to Dean as she had promised, they had barely gotten through the door when they came to a dead stop in front of her and she heard a familiar voice speaking. Looking around the two taller men, her eyes got wide at the sight in front of her. “Daddy?!”

Bobby looked down at his daughter and it was as if neither of the two men were in the room as he looked at her. “Hey there, princess.”

“Daddy!” Harley pushed past Dean and her uncle and made a beeline for her dad, nearly reaching out to him before she remembered that she wouldn’t be able to touch him. “Is it really you, Daddy? How? We...we burned you. There was a hunter’s funeral, just me and them. I...I saw it. How are you here?”

Bobby just smiled and walked over to a nearby table, grabbing his flask out of it and tossing it to Dean. Dean looked between the flask and the ghost standing in front of him, the look on his face one of pure shock. “What happened? Did you get stuck or…?”

Bobby shook his head as he looked at the three of them. “I wanted to stay. I needed to help.”

Harley frowned as she looked between the three men in the room. She didn’t care about the hows or the whys. All she cared about was the fact that she had her dad back. Sort of. At the very least she could see him. Talk to him. Tell him everything she had been going through and feeling ever since she found out the truth. “Who cares why he’s here? Or how? He’s here. That’s all that should matter!”

It was as if all three of the men had suddenly remembered that she was still in the room and they all turned to look at her at the same time. Dean let out a sigh and ran his hand down over his face as he looked at her. There was a lot of things that needed to be said and he wasn’t sure that he wanted her around for them. “Harley, can you go wait for us out in the car, please?”

Harley looked up at him as if he had lost his damned mind and shook her head vehemently. This was her dad, this was family business, and if anyone deserved to be in the conversation it was her. “No, I won’t. I’m going to be included in whatever it is you have to say to my dad. I’m part of your family whether you like it or not, you’re not going to just shove me aside whenever it’s not convenient to you for me to be around. Just because that’s what you did when I was a baby, doesn’t mean you can do it now!”

“Harley Kathryn!”

The sound of Bobby’s voice made her spin around to look at him and she at least had the decency to look sheepish. She’d known she was pushing boundaries, but in the moment she hadn’t cared. “Yes sir?”

“Go out to the car and wait for everybody. The boys and I still have some stuff to take care of in here. I’ll be out with them when we’re done.”

Harley huffed softly, but she knew better than to argue with her dad. Mumbling softly under her breath, she stomped out to the car they had been driving and flopped into the backseat, her arms crossed over her chest as she waited. She didn’t know how long she was out there, or when she had drifted off to sleep, but the next thing she knew she was waking up to the sound of voices outside the car. She yawned and stretched before she opened the door, just in time to hear Dean arguing with her dad.

“What were you thinking, Bobby? You could have been in heaven right now, drinking beer at Harvelle’s. Not stuck-”

“Stuck here with you and my daughter?”

There was a pregnant pause and a heaviness in the air, before Harley heard the sound of Dean’s strained voice. “Our daughter, Bobby. She’s my daughter, too, don’t forget that. Did you even stop to consider her in all of this? What this would do to her? She’s barely had time to adjust to losing you and now here you are, again. You know this can’t last forever. What happens when she gets used to you being here and then she loses you, again? Did you even stop to consider any of that? This...it’s not right. You know that.”

“We still have work to do. I just thought that was important. But, you’re right. What was I thinking?”

Harley walked around the back of the car, just in time to see her dad flicker and disappear. She let out a strangled yell and stepped towards him, trying to grab onto him before he was gone, but her hand just fell through empty air.

“Daddy? Daddy, no! Come back. Please…” She turned on Dean, red hot anger flashing through her eyes as she lunged at him, her fists swinging at his chest. To his credit, Dean didn’t try and push her away or stop her, he just stood there and took it until Sam grabbed ahold of her and pulled her back against him, wrapping his arms around her to keep her hands pinned to her sides. “This is your fault, you did this! I had my Daddy back and he went away because of you. I’m never going to forgive you for this, Dean Winchester.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harley still isn’t happy with Dean, with no end in sight, and does everything she can to avoid him. When she can’t take the option of avoiding him, instead she chooses to go the route of outright defiance.

Living in a one room cabin with two people you were trying to avoid made life more than a little difficult. Dean kept trying to stop her, trying to have a conversation with her, and she kept pushing him away. She still hadn’t forgiven him for driving her dad away and she wasn’t sure if she ever would. All she’d wanted was to see her dad again, to talk to him, maybe to get the chance to tell him goodbye. But that had been taken from her, by the one person who should have cared about her. Should have wanted the best for her. But, no, the man had made her dad go away and leave her again. In her eyes, Dean Winchester was the one to blame for her pain. She wanted nothing to do with him right now and, by extension, she wanted nothing to do with her Uncle Sam. Being stuck with the two men she was currently living with was nothing but a painful reminder of everything she had lost and she didn’t want to be part of this life, anymore.  
All she wanted was to be able to go back to her old life, to live in her own house and go to her own school, and to be with her dad again. 

The only plus side to where they were staying was that it was remote enough, tucked in the woods in the middle of nowhere, that she could sneak out and be relatively safe. At least, she was pretty sure she was safe. So far nobody and nothing had come after her and neither of the brothers seemed to have a problem with her leaving the cabin for hours at a time. While she was sure Dean wouldn’t care if she got snatched away by, well, anything, she was also fairly certain that her uncle still cared about her. At least she hoped he did. So, she was also confident that if he didn’t feel she was safe out in the woods alone he would stop her from leaving; or at least he would try, she really wasn’t exactly prone to listening to anything that anybody said right now.

Today was one of those days where she spent as much time out of the cabin as she possibly could. It had all started at breakfast, when she’d sat down with her cereal and juice. All she’d wanted to do was to be left alone, maybe have a chance to work on some of her schoolwork. But, as was often the case these days, Dean had decided to try and talk with her. No matter how many times she tried to politely blow him off and ignore him, he just kept persisting and trying to push a conversation on her. As per usual lately, things had escalated into a full blown argument that had resulted in her grabbing her things and storming out as she told him how much she hated him and how he had ruined her life. As the door had closed behind her, she thought she heard the scraping of a chair moving across the floor, followed by the sound of her uncle telling Dean to let her be.

She had spent the whole day in the woods, not too far from the cabin. There was a small cluster of trees there that offered her both shade and privacy any time she needed to get away. It was nice because she was close enough that she could hear if anything happened at the cabin, but it was well hidden enough that neither of the men would find her even if they tried. In fact, there had been more than once one of them had walked right past her without ever noticing her there. Today, however, neither one of them had emerged from inside which allowed her plenty of time to be curled up with her music and her school work. It wasn’t until the sun was starting to sink low in the sky, and her stomach was starting to protest from having been left empty the whole day, that she finally emerged from her hiding spot and headed back inside the cabin.

When she walked through the door the first thing Harley noticed wasn’t the two men hunched over a laptop, but rather the figure standing behind them. The sound of her book clattering through the floor echoed through the cabin as she realized that her father was there. He hadn’t abandoned her, after all, he had actually come back...despite the fact that Dean had been an absolute dick to him. Three heads turned toward the sound of the noise, three pairs of eyes looked at her, as she stood there in shock. “Daddy? You came back. You didn’t leave me.”

“Of course I didn’t. I wasn’t about to just abandon you with these two idjits. Besides, there’s still too much work to do. Someone has to keep these two on track. God knows they can’t do it on their own.”

“Yeah, we get it. Couldn’t do it without you.” Dean shook his head as he stood up and grabbed his jacket. “Could we do this family reunion later? Right now, we’re wasting time. Grab your stuff, Harley, we’ve got to get to Chicago.”

“No, wait. Boys, you can’t just break in. They know your mugs.” Everyone turned to look at Bobby. Harley wasn’t sure where they were going or what they were doing, but obviously her father thought that whatever it was that Dean and her uncle were planning was a bad idea. No surprise there, really. She’d known them long enough to know they had more than their fair share of bad ideas gone horribly wrong. It didn’t surprise her at all that things hadn’t changed, even now that she was involved. The three men all seemed to be thinking about the situation, before her father spoke up again. “What if we mailed in the flask? Then I could ghost through the joint.”

Both Dean and Sam frowned and shared a look with each other before Dean stepped forward, shaking his head. “What happens if you run into Dick and, you know, go vengeful? That’s not not something you can just shake off.”

Harley’s eyes went wide as it sunk into her what they were talking about. Her dad wanted to confront the man who had killed him and, as much as she hated to admit it, Dean was right. There was no way to predict how the older man would react when confronted with her killer. The thought of losing her dad again, because he went to a dark place they couldn’t save him from, wasn’t something she even wanted to consider. Looking back at her dad, she shook her head as her eyes shined with tears. “Daddy, no. Please. Don’t do it. I just got you back. I don’t want to lose you, again.” 

“Harley, give your old man some credit, I’m better than that. What do you expect me to do, ride the pine?”

Harley looked at Dean and her uncle, silently pleading with them to step in and help her. She had been through a lot in her life and had seen a lot, given how she was raised. It took a lot to scare her, but right now she was terrified and it was written all over her face. Dean didn’t seem to notice, he was still focused on Bobby, but her uncle did and gave her a little nod to reassure her that everything would be okay.

“Sorry, Bobby. It’s for the best, both for you and for Harley.”

Several hours later, Harley found herself sitting in the apartment of some woman the two brothers had managed to track down, listening to the three adults trying to come up with a plan to hack into the email of the guy who had killed her dad. Had she been given the choice, she’d have rather sat this one out. Not only did she not want to be anywhere near Dean, but she really didn’t want to run the risk of running into her father’s murderer. She’d all but begged to be allowed to stay...somewhere. Anywhere but in the middle of this case. But, in true form to being a pain in her ass, Dean had insisted that he wasn’t letting her out out of his sight. 

If she was being completely honest and not pouting, she supposed it could have been worse. This woman they’d found, Charlie, wasn’t so bad. She was actually kind of cool, someone that under different circumstances Harley could see herself being friends with. Wandering around the apartment, she saw things from just about every pop culture fandom known to man; most of them things that she herself enjoyed. Plus, she was a genius when it came to computers. Harley didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life, she’d pretty much always just assumed that she’d be a hunter herself; but given a chance, she wouldn’t mind doing something with computers. Not only could she maybe have a real job with a real life, but if she stayed in this life then it would be a useful skill to have.

Harley had finally curled up in a corner of the floor, book in hand, as the three people gathered around the table put together their plan. She heard bits and pieces of it every now and then, but in general she wasn’t paying much attention because, quite frankly, she didn’t really care. Based on past experience, she would be drug along until it was time for things to get real and then she’d be sidelined. Dean never let her help out beyond having a book or a laptop in her face and she was tired of trying to beg to be included. It was obvious that he didn’t look at her as being capable, or maybe he just didn’t see her as part of the family, so it was a battle she was never going to win. 

When she finally heard her name, Harley looked up and wasn’t surprised in the least when she was told she was going to stay at the apartment and they’d be back for her later. She was starting to realize that Dean only looked at her as being useful for research, but to actually participate in a hunt he seemed to be content to sideline her and keep her out of the action. It was if she was some piece of property that he got to control and say what she could or couldn’t do. Normally she might have been okay with it, she always did prefer the research to the actual legwork, but right now she was in the mood to be rebellious against Dean. Anything he said, she planned on doing the opposite. So, if he wanted her to stay home for this one...she fully intended on showing up to do her part.

That night she waited until the three adults had left and had been gone long enough that she felt safe that nobody would double back for anything and catch her sneaking out. Without having to worry about being caught, leaving was the easy part. It was getting to Roman Enterprises that proved to be difficult. It was a further distance than she had been anticipating, meaning that the walk there was taking longer than she had expected. For a brief moment she considered trying to hitchhike, but her goal was to piss off Dean not to get herself killed by either a stranger or him. So, Harley just had to get there the old fashioned way and hope she didn’t miss everything or, worse, have everyone gone by the time she got there and wind up being stranded.

When she finally arrived in front of the building, Harley looked around with a frown. She didn’t see Dean or her uncle anywhere, nor did she see the woman Charlie that was supposed to be there either. Walking up to the door, she chewed on her lip when she realized that she needed a badge to get in. Of course she didn’t have one. Maybe she hadn’t really thought this through all that well, she’d been too focused on defying Dean’s orders to really figure out the logistics of it all. Now she was here, nobody she knew in sight, and no plan for what to do next.

She had just turned around,ready to give up and head back to the apartment in defeat, sure to get herself a good asschewing when she got there, when she heard someone rattling the door behind her. Turning back around, she saw Charlie staring at her through the glass, a look of fear on her face, and Harley jumped into action to try and help. Grabbing hold of the door handles, she yanked on them in an effort to help open them. When she saw Charlie glance behind her, Harley looked up and saw a figuring coming down the glass elevator and she began tugging on the doors even harder in a desperate attempt to open them. She had just turned around to grab a rock to throw at the glass when she heard a strange noise and looked to see that the doors had shattered seemingly on their own. Before she could react, the figures of Dean and her uncle raced by her and crashed through the glass doors. Without stopping to think, Harley followed them inside and ran to Charlie where she had collapsed on the ground, to check her over and see how badly she was injured.

Harley was barely paying attention to what was going on behind her as she checked the older woman for injuries. She could hear what sounded like bodies hitting the ground, but didn’t know who was causing injury to whom. Just as she was getting ready to turn around to try and help out the brothers, she saw Charlie being lifted up into her uncle’s arms and Sam was grabbing hold of her own arm and shoving her back outside through the broken doors. Harley turned to glance back over her shoulder just in time to see someone flying through the air just before Dean turned to exit the building in a haste. 

Once they were safely away from their attackers, Dean grabbed onto Harley and spun her around roughly. Gripping tight to her shoulders, he gave her a little shake while he simultaneously took inventory of her to see if he could spot any injuries on her. “What the hell were you thinking, Harley? We told you to stay put, that means you stay put. Do you have any idea what could have happened to you back there? Were you trying to get yourself killed? I swear to God, you’re going to be the death of me.”

Harley just glared at Dean as he tried to act like he was her dad or something. He’d given up that right a long time ago and she wasn’t about to let him try and step into the role as if he deserved it. She didn’t appreciate the fact that he was treating her like a child, and she definitely didn’t like the way he was trying to act as if he actually cared about her. “I don’t see what you’re upset about, Dean, it’s not like you give a shit what happens to me anyway. Stop treating me like a little kid and stop acting like you care. You don’t get to tell me what to do. You’re not my father. You never were and you don’t get to start acting like it, now.”

Before Dean could say anything to her, Harley yanked herself out of his grip and turned to walk away. She might be stuck with him until she was 18, but that didn’t mean she had to like it and it sure as hell didn’t mean she had to respect him. That ship had sailed already and she had no intention of trying to make amends, now. As far as Harley Singer was concerned, Dean Winchester was nothing to her.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harley is still annoyed with Dean and starting to become annoyed with the whole life of a hunter. Maybe a heart to heart with her favorite uncle will help her get things off her chest and make her feel better.

Somehow Sam had found an abandoned building for the trio of hunters to stay in for the night, or for however long they needed it, just on the other side of Chicago from Richard Roman Enterprises headquarters. Though the drive was only about twenty minutes, it felt like at least triple that as they drove along in icy silence. Harley was sulking in the backseat of the car, staring at the passing streetlights as she stubbornly refused to talk to anybody, while Dean just stared straight ahead out the windshield with his hands gripping the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles were white. Sam, for his part, was choosing to stay out of the middle of whatever was going on between the two. He wasn’t sure what was going through his niece’s mind right now and he didn’t want to question her in front of Dean, so he just sat in the awkward silence and tried not to let it show just how uncomfortable he was feeling right now.

As soon as the car was parked in front of the building, barely even at a complete stop, Harley was jumping out of the backseat and slamming the door behind her as she took off inside the building. She didn’t want to be around either of the two men right now; and she certainly didn’t feel like getting another asschewing from Dean, so she wanted to put as much distance between them and herself before either of them could try and speak to her. Luckily the building was large enough that she was able to find a dark corner that wasn’t too filthy or damp where she could be alone with her books and her school work without having to be anywhere in close proximity to the two brothers, though she quickly realized that school work wasn’t going to happen. There was no electricity in this dilapidated shithole, so her laptop was useless to her at the moment. How anyone expected her to graduate high school without access to basic utilities was beyond her, but she figured neither her uncle nor his brother gave two shits about her education. It wasn’t like it mattered to either of them if she graduated, it wasn’t their life and it wasn’t a hunt so it was completely off their radar.

Harley had no idea what either of the two men were up to after they came inside the building, nor did she particularly care. They’d both seemed distracted in the car and she doubted either of them even noticed she was missing, which worked in her favor. As long as they were busy and distracted it meant that they were leaving her alone, which meant she could have a little bit of peace and quiet with her thoughts. She’d started to get used to things with her new family but her dad was back now, kind of, and she didn’t know how to process that. Everything was such a mess lately, worse than it was before, and she never got a chance to just breathe and try to take it in. Sometimes, especially lately, she wished she’d been born into a different family. A normal family. As much as she loved her dad, everything would have been so much simpler if she’d just had different parents. A different life altogether, far away from ghosts and demons and angels and whatever else was out there going bump in the night.

Shaking her head a little to try and rid her mind of those kind of thoughts, Harley reached into her bag to pull out a flashlight and her favorite book, one she had read so many times that the pages were now worn on the edges. It had always been a comfort to her when she was feeling lost and it was her go to any time she needed a pick me up. She had just gotten comfortable, just far enough in to her reading that she was starting to get lost in the story and shut out the real world, when she was yanked out of fantasy and back to reality by a boom of thunder so loud it shook the building followed by a bright almost blinding flash of lightning.

A small whimper escaped her lips as she curled further in upon herself, trying to make her body as tiny as possible. While she liked to consider herself fairly brave, storms were one thing that still scared her. Even now, at the age of sixteen, any time it had stormed she had snuck into her dad’s room and curled up either on the bed with him or on the floor next to the bed. As long as he was physically close by, she’d felt safe. Now, she just felt scared and lonely. While she knew there were two other people somewhere in the same building, she just couldn’t bring herself to go to either of them; she’d rather suffer in silence than admit her weakness to Dean and she knew she couldn’t go to her uncle because his brother would be close by. Grabbing her phone out of her bag, she didn’t care if it ended up dying from being unable to charge it. Harley shoved her earbuds tight into her ears and cranked the music up as loud as it would go before curling up in the fetal position and squeezing her eyes shut so tight it physically hurt as she tried to drown out the sounds of the storm raging outside.

Harley didn’t even realize she had managed to fall asleep until she felt a hand grabbing on to her arm and shaking her softly. Her eyes flew wide open and she let out a terrified scream as she quickly scrambled away from whoever was grabbing her. Quickly pulling her earbuds out of her ears, she lunged for her bag to try and find something to defend herself with. The only thing she had that was even remotely threatening was a metal nail file and she grabbed onto her as she turned towards her attacker, only to see her uncle looking at her with wide eyes and his hands thrown up in the air. “Uncle Sam? You scared the hell out of me. What are you doing?”

“Sorry, kiddo. I didn't mean to scare you. I was just trying to wake you up.” Sam shook his head a little as he reached over and took the nail file from her, placing it back on top of her bag for her. “I’m not sure if I want to get you something you could actually defend yourself with or if I want to just leave well enough alone so you don’t end up using a weapon on me.”

“You won’t have to worry about me using a weapon on you if you don’t sneak up on me and wake me out of a sound sleep.” Looking over at her uncle with a raised eyebrow, she leaned back against the wall of the building and pulled her knees up to her chest. “What are you waking me up for, anyway? Would it really kill anyone to just let me sleep in for once? Have a little bit of peace for the first time in my life?”

Shaking his head a little, Sam sighed softly as he moved to where his niece was sitting and slid down the wall to sit beside her. “Harley, what’s going on? I know you’re upset with Dean, but you’ve never been like this with me, kiddo. You’ve always been willing to talk to me. So, why the attitude all of a sudden?”

Harley shrugged her shoulders as she picked at her jeans. She knew her uncle probably didn’t deserve the way she was acting with him, but she needed someone to let her frustrations out on and he was there at the moment. Besides, she was pretty sure her uncle actually liked her and didn’t just look at her as a burden he’d gotten stuck with. He seemed like out of the two men he would be the one more likely to forgive her, as long as she didn’t go too far. So she felt safer pushing the envelope with him, he’d never push her away completely and give up on her the way she knew Dean would. At least, she hoped he wouldn’t. “I don’t know, I’m fine. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. Just...had a lot on my mind lately, I guess? And before you ask, no I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to...I don’t know. Get through whatever crusade you and Dean are on as fast as possible so we can go home. I want my dad around. I want to see him and spend time with him. I just...I don’t know what I want.”

Sam wrapped his arm around Harley and pulled her against him, not saying a word as he just held on to her. While he didn’t agree with the way his niece had been acting over the past couple of weeks, he still had empathy for the poor kid. “I wish I could give you your dad back, kiddo. Really give him back to you instead of, well, what you’ve got right now. I just...hope it can last for awhile.”

Harley frowned at her uncle’s words. She didn’t like the implication that her dad might not be around for a long time. She had just gotten him back and she wasn’t ready or willing to lose him, again. It wasn’t fair and she didn’t want to think about it. She just wanted to take advantage of him being around and keep him with her for as long as possible. Forever if they could figure out a way. “Yeah...he’ll be here for me. I know he will. I can always trust him. But, I don’t want to talk about it. Did you wake me up to give me some kind of pep talk or was there a real reason?”

Based on the tone of her voice, Sam chose not to push the issue just yet; but he knew it was a conversation that would need to be had eventually. He and Dean had already discussed the fact that Bobby was exhibiting signs of losing control and going dark side. It was likely that Harley was going to lose her father again, sooner rather than later, and he wanted to talk to her about it before it happened. Just not today. “Yeah...Dean and I, we’ve got somewhere we need to go. We don’t know how long we’re going to be, hopefully no more than a few days, but...we’re going to have you stay behind on this one. We’re going to take you back to the cabin and drop you off, then we’ll come back when we’re done.”

“So, in translation...I’m a liability, or just not part of the family enough to be involved in this one, so Dean is going to do what Dean does best and ditch me. Got it.”

“Harley…. It’s not even like that.” Sam sighed softly and shook his head as he looked at his niece. “We got a call and we need to go get Castiel. We’re not taking you because I talked Dean out of it. He was going to take you along, but we don’t know what Cas is like right now and I didn’t want to put you at risk. Just...I need you to promise me you’ll stay put, Harley. No sneaking off, no trying to follow us. Neither one of us want to lose you, kiddo. You really scared Dean with that last little stunt...and you scared me, too. So please, for me, stay at the cabin when we leave you there okay?”

“Okay Uncle Sam. Whatever you say.” She shrugged her shoulders a little as she moved to start packing up her things. Truthfully, she was glad she was going to have a few days to herself, to not have to worry about being a hunter. But she wasn’t going to pretend that it didn’t hurt that she was being left behind again, that her uncle thought she couldn’t take care of herself and would be at risk if she went with them. She might be young, but she was just as capable as they were. Now, all she needed to do was find a way to prove it to them.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Sam have returned to the cabin and they aren’t alone. When there is a threat to one of the group, Harley takes things into her own hands.

Harley had been at the cabin by herself for two days when Dean and Sam finally came back, but they weren’t alone when they returned. Castiel she knew, he’d been at her house when she was still with her dad more than once. The other two people she had no clue who they were, the one didn’t look much older than she was. When they’d all come into the cabin, Harley had been sitting at the kitchen table working on her school work. Looking up from the Chemistry lab she’d been doing, she raised an eyebrow at the two newcomers. “Who the hell are they?”

“Language, Harley…”

“You don’t get to tell me what to do, Dean. Who are they?”

Before the two of them could get into yet another argument, Sam stepped in between them to address his niece. “Harley, this is Kevin Tran. He’s...a prophet. He’s helping us out with something, so he’s going to stay with us for a little while. That’s Meg. She’s…”

“I’m a demon.” Sam turned and gave Meg a bitch face when she interrupted him. He hadn’t exactly been planning on letting Harley know that they were working with a demon. There had been enough going on lately without tossing that on her as well. Meg noticed the look she was getting and shrugged her shoulders. “What? It’s what I am, not gonna lie to the kid.”

Harley looked between Dean and Sam with a raised eyebrow before snorting softly and shaking her head. “Seriously? You won’t take me anywhere with you because it’s too much of a risk, but you’ll bring a damned demon home with you? God, you two really are idiots aren’t you?”

“Harley…”

Harley looked at her uncle and shrugged her shoulders. She wasn’t the one who’d brought a demon home like some kind of pet or something. She knew they both were worrying about her dad going vengeful, but they were waltzing in with a demon as if it were nothing. The double standard was astounding and also pretty annoying to her. But, then again, what did she know? She was just the stupid kid. 

Standing up from the table, she closed her laptop and started cleaning up her things. It was bad enough she had to share this little cabin with her uncle and Dean, now it was going to be even more crowded and she wanted to get away from everyone while she still could. There was still homework she needed to get done and she wanted to finish up so she could retreat with her books. She was hoping that she could at least have an hour or two before someone tried to drag her back to either be sociable or, more realistically, to be another researcher for...whatever the hell was going on with all of these people who had shown up.

“Hey, Harley, why don’t you stick around down here for a little while? We’ve got to get Kevin settled in, might do him some good to have someone his own age around. He’s a bit…” Dean looked over to the young boy, who was standing there clutching onto his bag as if it was his favorite teddy bear or something. He definitely seemed like a twitchy and nervous little thing. Harley looked over at him with one raised eyebrow. She’d just as soon stay out of whatever it was the two brothers had gotten themselves into this time.

“No thanks, Dean. You two seem to have it under control, you don’t need me. I’d rather work on school. Uncle Sam can get me if he needs me.” She made sure to specify that it was Sam who could come for her and only if he was the one who needed her. Her uncle was the only one she really trusted right now, so he was the only one she was really inclined to do much for. 

Harley had been in her room for a couple of hours and had almost all of her school work done and caught up with. It was the first time in weeks she’d been able to really focus on her studies and she felt accomplished for getting as much done as she had. Though she figured nobody really cared if she graduated or not, she cared about her studies and she knew her dad had wanted her to get an education. If she didn’t finish for any other reason, she would do it to make her dad proud of her. Figuring she’d been working hard for awhile, she decided she had more than earned the right for a little break. Not only were her muscles getting sore from sitting in one position for too long, but her stomach was also starting to let her know it was time to eat. It had been awhile since she’d had anything to eat or drink; not only had she been working on her schoolwork all day, but once Dean and Sam had returned she’d been stubbornly avoiding going anywhere either of them. The further she stayed from them and the longer she ignored them, the less likely it was for either of them to bother her or try and talk to her. Part of her was hoping that if she ignored them long enough, she wouldn’t have to interact with them much before she turned eighteen and could get the hell out.

She had just stood up from her bed and stretched out her muscles, intent on heading to the kitchen for some food, when she heard a disturbance coming from the main part of the cabin. Heading cautiously down the hallway, she paused in the doorway when she saw Dean in the middle of a confrontation with an angel. The angel had just started to advance on Dean when Castiel tried to intervene, only for the woman to start hitting him with no reason and no provocation. Harley stood in the doorway in shock waiting for someone, anyone, to intervene on the angel’s behalf. She couldn’t believe that nobody was making a move, neither Dean nor Sam were doing anything to save a creature who had saved all of their asses on more than one occasion. 

From the corner of her eye Harley saw a glint of metal in the demon’s hand and recognized the object she was holding as an angel blade. When nobody else was doing anything, Harley took it upon herself to take action. Moving quickly, she quietly moved across the room to grab the blade from the demon and turned to plunge it into the back of the woman who had been threatening Castiel. When the angel dropped to the floor, Harley just stood over her with a satisfied smirk on her face.

Everyone in the room was just staring at her with shocked looks on their faces. It was as if none of them believed that she had just done that, that she had even been capable of doing it. Harley hoped that maybe now they’d all take her seriously and realize that she DID have what it took to be a hunter. Looking around at all of them, she just raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “She was hurting him, nobody else was stepping in. So...I did.”

Dean was the first one who recovered from the shock and he crossed the room in about three steps to grab the blade out of her hand. “Are you crazy? Do you know what they could have done to you?”

“Yeah, I know, and I don’t really care Dean. She was hurting YOUR friend. Someone had to do it. In case you didn’t notice, I’m fine. My dad didn’t raise some worthless little damsel in distress.” Turning back away from Dean, missing the look of both pride and concern on his face, Harley held her hand out to Castiel to help him stand again. She’d known what she was doing, she’d already calculated the risk before she’d made a move, and her in head it was worth it. If nobody else had been willing to take the risk for him, she was. The angel had helped her family more times than she could count and she felt she owed it to him to return the favor. Besides, maybe by helping him and getting on his good side, Harley would have another ally. The way things seemed to be going with her family, she figured she could use all the people on her side that she could get.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Sam and Dean are off on a job, Harley has been left alone with Castiel. When Castiel gives her a little truth, is Harley ready to hear it, and what is she going to do with it?

Harley was starting to rethink her plan of stepping in and saving an angel in distress. While she had thought that it was going to help her prove herself to her uncle and Dean, to let them see she was a capable hunter and could accompany them for more than just research, apparently all it had done was show she was an acceptable angel babysitter. While the two men were off searching for the Alpha Vamp to get his blood, Harley was stuck at the cabin with an Angel of the Lord who seemed a bit off his rocker. She’d begged to be allowed to go with them, to actually be permitted to be useful for once, but she’d just been told that they needed her to stay with Castiel, to keep an eye on him and make sure no trouble befell him. It wasn’t the most glamourous assignment in the world, but she figured it at least indicated that they trusted her somewhat or else they wouldn’t have left her in charge of the angel.

Angel sitting was a fairly easy thing, in her opinion. Castiel mostly kept to himself, often times sitting by a window and staring out into the woods or occasionally going outside to get some fresh air. When he wasn’t in the cabin, Harley would often follow him outside with one of her books, enjoying the sunshine herself, to be able to keep an eye on him. She figured that with her luck if anything happened to him or he took off on his own, Dean would rip her a new asshole, so it was better to be where she could see him. Not that she would really be able to do anything or to stop him if he got it in his head to leave. He could disappear in an instant if he wanted, but luckily for her he seemed content to just wander the grounds outside the cabin as he seemed to very intently study the nature around them.

When Castiel chose to spend his time indoors, Harley was able to get more of her school work done. The school year was quickly coming to an end and all of her assignments needed to be finished and submitted by a certain date, so it was in her best interest to work on it as often as she could. Occasionally Castiel would join her at the kitchen table while she completed her studies, engaging her in a conversation about the subjects she was studying and helping her a bit with her school work when it was a subject he was familiar with. When it was something he didn’t recognize, such as literature, he would question her on the things she was doing almost as if trying to learn himself. It was a change for Harley to have someone show such interest in her schooling. Up until now only Sam had given any indication of being interested in what she was doing, and even then the interest had tapered off a bit lately as the two brothers had gotten busier, so it was nice to have someone act as if they cared.

The thing she never expected, and wasn’t sure of how to react to when it happened, was for Castiel to start a conversation more personal than one about math and science and history. But, it would seem, he had grown bored with the same old same old topics of conversation. Or maybe he was just growing more comfortable with her, and assumed she was comfortable with him, and felt a more personal conversation was now appropriate. He sat down next to her while she was working on an essay that was due and didn’t even bother with any small talk or pleasantries before diving head first into the hard hitting stuff. “I sense a lot of anger coming from you, Y.N. It seems to be mainly directed at your father.”

Harley raised her eyebrows and peered at the angel over the top of her laptop screen. She had no idea who he thought he was that he had a right to question her about anything, but he sure liked to go right for the jugular. “Okay, first of all...Dean is not my father. He might have gotten my mom knocked up, but that’s all he ever did for me. Second of all, I really don’t know that I feel comfortable talking to you about this.”

“You may not believe it, but your father is a good man. He’s not without fault, but he tries. And he does care for you, Harley, quite a bit.”

Harley snorted softly as she looked away from the celestial being and back to her schoolwork. Seriously, who did he think he was, coming in and and trying to tell her anything about Dean. As if he knew anything about the situation or how Dean felt about her. “Yeah, sure, okay. He’s got a funny way of showing it. He cares about me so much that he gave me up and never came back. He cares so much that he keeps treating me as if I’m some kind of helpless kid who can’t do anything. He cares SO MUCH that I’m here with you, instead of with my so called family. They both keep pushing me away and leaving me behind. I know they don’t want me, they’re just stuck with me.”

“I think you underestimate them, Harley, your father in particular.”

“Please. Stop calling him that, Castiel. He’s not my father, he never will be. He’s just...Dean. My father is Bobby Singer.” Castiel looked at her, his head tilted slightly to the side as he studied her intently. Harley could feel his eyes on her and she shifted uncomfortably in her seat, wondering what he might be thinking about her. It was a little unsettling to have this person, this other being, around that seemed to be able to read her like a book. Raising her eyebrow a little, she never looked back up at him as she spoke to him. “What, Castiel? I know you want to say something, so...spit it out.”

“The Winchesters both care for you, Harley. Your...Dean, he just doesn’t express it the way you seem to be expecting it to. But it’s there, if you look for it. The way you expect him to. It’s there, if you look for it, though. You think he’s treating you like a child, when he’s really trying to protect you. He’d rather die himself than ever see anything happen to you. When he gets angry, it’s because he’s worried. You are just choosing to see it and interpret it the way you wish to. Maybe, if you give him a chance, you’ll find he’s not as bad as you paint him to be.”

When the angel got up and left the table, leaving Harley alone with her own thoughts, she couldn’t help but sigh softly. Maybe he was right. Maybe she should ease up on Dean a little, try and give him a chance and not make things so difficult for him. Maybe even try and see things from his perspective for once. Shaking her head a little, she quietly closed her laptop and folded her arms on the table so she could lay her head on top of them. As much as she needed to work on her schoolwork, she knew there was no way she was going to be able to finish, now. In such a short conversation, Castiel had given her way too much to think about to be able to concentrate on anything else.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harley has been mulling over the conversation she had with Castiel and has made a decision regarding her relationship with Dean. But before she can talk to him about it, there’s a job to be done and Harley ends up finding herself facing another devastating loss.

It had been over a week since Harley’s conversation with Castiel, over a week that she had been mulling it over in her mind trying to make sense of everything and decide what she wanted to do when it came to Dean. She knew that she needed to try and make a go of this whole situation with him and Sam. They were her family, the only family she had left, and she was stuck with the two of them for at least two more years. She could either try and make peace with them, with Dean specifically, or she could have a miserable two years of existence. She had come to the conclusion that she wanted to at least try and apologize and make amends.

The problem was, she hadn’t had any chance to get Dean alone to talk to him. As soon as the brothers had returned from their Alpha Vamp mission, they had shifted straight into ‘kill Dick’ mode. The only thing either of them was focused on was getting to Dick Roman and ending him. To be honest, Harley couldn’t really argue with their plan. This was the man who had killed her father...nobody wanted to see him dead more than she did. But, it made it difficult to try and get a chance to talk to Dean and try to apologize or work things out with him.

The only thing she couldn’t complain about was the fact that, now, the two men seemed more willing to involve her in things. They, Dean specifically, still didn’t seem to want her right on the front line; but they were more willing to have her right by their side when they were doing...anything, really. Even as they prepared to summon the King of Hell himself, she was right beside them learning how to do everything. Summoning a demon wasn’t something her father had ever wanted her doing, so it wasn’t something he had ever allowed her to learn. It was kind of nice now having people willing to teach her; even if it wasn’t something she ever did herself, she still liked learning new things.

Having never been involved in a demon summoning before, Harley had to admit that she was more than a little disappointed when it appeared to not work and the King of Hell didn’t show up in front of them. Instead a different demon, the one the brothers had brought home with them, ended up knocking on the door and ranting and raving about something Castiel had done. Harley couldn’t help but snicker a little at how one of hell’s demons seemed so flustered by one angel. Sometimes she just wanted to laugh at the comedy that was her life.

Just when she had thought things couldn’t get any more crazy than they already were, Crowley had finally showed up...right when they had one of his rogue demons and the angel he hated most in their cabin. She knew she should probably be scared. After all this wasn’t just any demon, this was the king of all demons, and he seemed annoyed with everyone in the room. It would be nothing to him to end them all and she knew it; but she wasn’t scared at all. Not even a little bit nervous. Something told her that they were safe and he wasn’t going to harm them. Not today, at least. When he moved towards Castiel, Harley didn’t even hesitate to put herself between him and the angel. “Leave him alone, Crowley. He’s of no use to you right now, and even if he was...I’m not letting you get him.”

She saw the demon’s eyebrow cock slightly at her; whether he was annoyed or impressed she wasn’t too sure. “My aren’t you the brave one, little Chipmunk. Or foolish. You can keep your little pet for now, you’ll be needing him, but don’t think this is over between him and I. I never leave my business unfinished.”

Once the demon king had handed over the vial of what they all hoped was his blood and left again, Dean shook his head as he turned to look at Harley. “Sometimes, I don’t know whether to be proud of you or to try and shake some sense into you. You’re going to wind up on the wrong side of something one of these days and that scares the hell out of me.”

It made Harley happy to know that Dean was proud of her, even if it also frustrated, and she couldn’t keep a small smile from playing at the corners of her mouth at his words. She was pretty sure it was the first time Dean had ever had any kind of compliment for her and she knew damned well it was the first time he had ever hinted at having any sort of pride for her, so she was going to take it where she could get it.

The happiness didn’t last for long, because as soon as Dean and Sam had everything they needed in their possession, they were back to being focused on Dick Roman. Everything was a little tense because nobody knew if they really did have the correct ingredients because there was no way of telling whether or not Crowley had double crossed them. The ritual they had done over the bone hadn’t seemed to produce any kind of spectacular results to indicate that it had gone right, so now they were left going in on blind faith. Because of that, both Dean and Sam had told Harley that she needed to stay behind while they went to deal with Roman. As much as she wanted to go, she knew it was useless to argue and being as how she wanted to get on their good side, it wasn’t an issue she was willing to push right now. They could go in and play the heroes while she stayed behind, this time, then after they came back she could talk to them and try to convince them as to why she should be allowed to come along.

Unfortunately, when they came back, there was no talking about anything. They still had a Dick problem, though neither of the brothers seemed to inclined to reveal what had happened that brought them back unsuccessful. They’d merely mumbled something about a maid and then filed everyone in on the fact that there were now more than one Dick Roman clone roaming about. With that new wrench in the plans, and an unwilling to help them angel, it was back to the drawing board to try and figure out what to do next.

Later that night, Harley was in her room trying to search through everything they had on Leviathans in an attempt to find a way to destroy them without knowing which Dick was the real Dick. Unfortunately she was coming up empty handed, but she was stubborn and determined to find something to help. As she was leafing through the papers spread out on her bed, she heard a knock on the door and looked up to see her uncle standing there, a decidedly uncomfortable look on his face. “Hey Uncle Sam, come on in. Did you need something? I still haven’t really found much.”

“Yeah, I...that’s okay, kiddo. I need to talk to you, but not about any of that.” Her uncle walked into the room with a defeated sigh and sat down on her bed next to her. “I need to talk to you about...it’s about Bobby, Harley.”

“Daddy? Is he here?” Harley’s whole face lit up and she jumped up off the bed to go look for her father, but was stopped short by Sam’s hand on her arm. Looking back at him, she got a feeling of dread in her chest when she saw the look on his face. “Uncle Sam, what is it? What’s wrong with my dad?”

“He… He came here, Harley, but…” Sam took in a deep breath and let it out in a slow sigh, not wanting to have this conversation with his niece. “He started to go vengeful, Harley. Dean and I had our suspicions for awhile now, but we’d hoped we were wrong. He finally recognized it in himself and he didn’t want to go there. He came to us, because...he wanted us to burn the flask. To let him go.”

Harley’s eyes got wide and she shook her head as she slowly backed away from her uncle. While she’d known deep down in her heart of hearts that this day was bound to come eventually, she was still reluctant to believe it. It couldn’t be possible, not her dad, he was better than that. “No. No...you’re lying to me. You...you didn’t burn it already, did you? You didn’t send my Daddy away?”

“No, we haven’t done it yet. I wanted to, I didn’t want to put you through that. But...Dean stopped me. He...he thought you might want to say goodbye, first.”

Harley nodded her head a little as she tried to fight back the tears that were forming in her eyes. She didn’t want to say goodbye, she wasn’t ready for it and didn’t know if she could handle it, but she knew it was better than the alternative. She didn’t want to lose her dad, yet again, without saying goodbye to him. Sam wrapped his arm around her shoulder and lead her through the cabin to where her dad was waiting for her. Harley let out a strangled sob when she saw him standing there, knowing it was going to be the last time she would ever see him. “Daddy…”

“Hey there, princess.” Bobby took a step towards her and reached out a hand as if he was going to touch her face in an attempt to wipe away her tears, before dropping it back to his side. “Don’t cry, princess. I’m going to be okay, and so are you. These boys here will make sure you’re taken care of. Just listen to your uncle and your dad over there, okay? If you do that you’ll be just fine.”

“He’s not my dad. You are. I don’t want him...I want you!”

“I know you do, princess, but I can’t be with you right now. He can. Both of these idjits can. Be good and let them take care of you.”

Before Harley could say anything else, Bobby looked over to Dean and nodded his head. Harley watched in horror as Dean dropped the match on her dad’s old flask, tears streaming down her face as it began to burn, followed by the image of her dad going up in flames. Dean tried to reach for her, to offer her what little comfort he could, but she pulled back and turned away from him. Instead, she turned to cling to her uncle; her face buried against his chest as her sobs echoed through the cabin.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harley doesn’t have time to mourn her loss, not when there’s still a job to be done. She’s finally included on a job, but the end result is nothing like she had been expecting. The hits keep coming to Harley as she loses everything she’s come to care about and then realizes a hard truth about Dean after it’s too late. 
> 
> A/N: I’m sure there will be some that aren’t happy with where I took this chapter. But I’ve had the next three chapters written in my head since I started this story and, well…here we are. I’m sorry.

There was no time for Harley to mourn losing her dad, yet again. Had she had the luxury, she would have curled up in her bed for a week, crying into her pillow, but that wasn’t an option for her. As she had already so cruelly learned, there is no time off in the life of a hunter. There was still a job to be done, no matter how badly she was hurting. She knew her dad wouldn’t want her to not finish a job, so as much as she wanted to just give up...she was going to keep on going. For him.

Harley didn’t know what had been said or what had gone down between Dean and Castiel, all she knew was that the angel was now on board for helping them. She also knew that she was to be included in whatever was to happen tonight. Whether it was because she had finally proven herself to her family or because Dean wanted to keep an eye on her, she didn’t know. Honestly, just this once, she didn’t care. As long as she was going along, that’s what she cared about. Harley needed the distraction that this job would offer her.

It had been decided that while Meg created a very obvious and public distraction, Harley would be with the four men sneaking into the headquarters of Richard Roman Enterprises. While Dean and Castiel went looking for the head man himself, Harley would be with her uncle looking for Kevin the prophet. Not exactly the high involvement she’d been hoping for, but at least she was being included this time. Hopefully, in time, she’d be allowed to do a little more hands on stuff. For now, she’d just do the job she was given and do it well, so eventually she’d be more trusted. 

Finding Kevin had been easier than she’d anticipated, almost too easy, and Harley had to wonder what they catch was. Hunting was never this simple, there was always more going on that met the eye, so she was on her guard as she helped her uncle untie the boy. Once they had him freed, the unexpected surprise she’d been waiting on was dropped on her when Kevin started babbling on about how they had to destroy the lab. Of COURSE they couldn’t just sneak in, set him free, and get out. No, there had to be more to do. Anything else would just be too damned easy. 

When they found the lab Harley and Sam burst inside just in time to watch Dean stab Dick Roman through the neck, which was shortly followed by the explosion of the creature...everywhere. In the aftermath of the decimation of Dick Roman, Harley looked around the room and realized that not only was the creature gone, but so was Dean and Castiel. Neither of them were standing where they’d once been. Eyes wide, she turned around and looked at her uncle in a panic. “Uncle Sam? Where are they? Where did Dean go? He was just here.”

“I know, Harley. But I...I don’t know where…” Sam walked into the room, taking in his surroundings as he tried to wrap his mind around what was happening; only to realize that he had no idea what was happening. Nothing in their research had ever given them any indication that something like this would happen. He wasn’t sure what even HAD happened. Whatever it was, he needed to fix it. Fast. His niece had just lost everything, she didn’t need to lose anyone else, both him and his brother had already promised her that they’d never leave her. “Just….give me a minute, okay? I’m going to figure this out and everything is going to be alright.”

Before either of them had time to try and piece anything together, Crowley materialized out of nowhere in the previously empty room. Both Sam and Harley stood there and listened to him in shock as he told them that Dean was gone, carried away by the aftershock of killing Dick Roman, and not even the King of Hell himself knew where he was. After the demon had left, Sam had turned to his niece and looked at her with a look of pure and utter defeat on his face. It was then that Harley knew that they were screwed. Never, in all the time she had known the Winchesters, had she ever seen Sam look like that. He really didn’t know what to do next and that scared her. She was looking to her uncle for answers and if he didn’t have them Harley didn’t know what was going to happen.

Faced with the loss of yet one more person in her life, Harley entered a state of shock. She no longer could feel anything, she was completely disconnected from the world around her. All she knew was that not only was her dad gone forever now, but Dean was gone too. She hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to him, to apologize for the way she’d been acting towards him lately. She never got to try and be a family with him and her uncle, and now she never would get that chance.

Vaguely, she felt her uncle wrap his arm around her and lead her out of the building. His large hands guided her to the car and helped her get in, before she was somewhat aware of his large frame leaning over her to buckle her in. He climbed into the driver’s seat and she heard the car start, one of Dean’s classic rock tapes immediately turning on and blaring out over the speakers. Still she didn’t say a word, didn’t move, barely even blinked. All she could do was stare ahead blankly, not really seeing anything around her as the car moved down the road. It wasn’t until they reached the cabin they’d been staying in that she gave any signs of life. As soon as the car came to a stop, she was fumbling with the seat belt and pushing the door open as she stumbled out of the car and into the cabin. Harley didn’t even know if her uncle was following her as she made her way inside and found her bed, curling up in the fetal position in the middle of it as she gasped for air. Harley had never had a panic attack before in her life, but she was fairly certain she was having one now. She wanted to cry, but couldn’t find the tears. Wanted to scream, but had no air left in her lungs. All she could do was lay there, shaking, as she tried to process everything that had happened in the past twenty four hours.

Harley didn’t know how long her uncle allowed her to lay there. It could have been minutes, it could have been days, time had lost all meaning to her. She may have drifted off to sleep for a bit, but she couldn’t be sure. All she knew was one minute she was alone in the room and the next thing she knew her uncle was coming in and sitting next to her on the bed, reaching out to lay his hand on her shoulder. “Harley, I...I’ve been thinking. Trying to figure out what to do next, and what is going to be best for you. I just got off the phone with Jody. I’m going to take you to Sioux Falls and you’re going to stay with her.”

Harley shot straight up into a sitting position and stared at her uncle as if he was talking in some foreign language she didn’t know. There was no way she could be hearing him right. Her uncle loved her, he cared about her, at least...he’d always acted like he did. He wouldn’t do this to her, would he? “You...you’re leaving me? I just lost my dad. I just lost everything. You’re all I have left and, what, you’re going to just ditch me and let me be Jody’s problem? I thought...I thought you cared about me, Uncle Sam.”

“Harley, I do care about you, kiddo. That’s why I’m doing this. You’ll be better off with Jody. You’ll be in a more stable environment, you can go back to school. I don’t know where I’m going next. I don't know what I’m going to do, next. I need to figure that out. In the meantime, you need something a little more permanent than I can offer you. I’m not going to be out of your life, completely. I’ll still come and visit, I just...I can’t keep you with me, Harley”

“Bullshit, Uncle Sam. I don’t need permanent. I don’t need school. I don’t need any of that shit. I need my family. I need you, damn it. If you seriously think this is what’s best for me, then not only do you not know me at all..you don’t give a damn about me, either.”

Looking over at his niece, Sam sighed softly. This hadn’t been an easy decision to come to, he had agonized it over it long and hard. He knew that if either man was here, Bobby and Dean would both kick his ass, but he couldn’t see any other way. He was in no position to try and raise a teenage girl by himself. Jody would fare at it far better than he ever could. He just hoped that one day Harley would be able to understand that and forgive him. 

“This isn’t up for discussion or debate, Harley. Tomorrow morning I’m going to help you pack up your stuff and we’re going to Sioux Falls.” Sam stood up from the bed, not leaving room for any more discussion, and moved to leave her alone; figuring that she wouldn’t want to see or speak to him anymore anyway. He’d just made it to the doorway of the room when he heard a small voice coming from the bed.

“Uncle Sam?”

Taking in a deep breath, trying to mentally prepare himself for the argument he was sure was coming. Whether either of them had been aware of it, or chosen to admit it, Harley was exactly like Dean. They were both stubborn and prone to argue when they thought they were right, always dead set on getting their own way. “What is it, Harley?”

“Can….can I take something of Dean’s with me? I don’t have much of anything that was my dad’s, but I want something from Dean. So I can maybe feel closer to him? I won’t take much, just a little something. Please, Uncle Sam?” She had such a note of desperation in her voice and he could see the pain in her eyes, there was no way he could find it in himself to say no to her. 

“Yeah, kiddo. He put his stuff in the closet down the hall. You can have whatever you want.”

Pushing herself up off the bed, Harley made her way slowly down the hall to the closet. She already knew exactly what she wanted, a shirt she’d seen him wear many times and she knew she’d always think of him when she saw it. Maybe even feel a little closer to him. Opening the door, she scanned through Dean’s belongings to try and find what she was looking for. At first she didn’t see it and she almost panicked, thinking that something had happened to it and it was gone. Then, she spotted it, folded up on the top shelf of the closet. When she went to pull the shirt down she hadn’t noticed the box underneath it until it came tumbling down; its lid popping off when it hit the ground and the contents falling out all over the place. 

Initially she was going to just scoop everything up and put it back, not wanting to invade Dean’s privacy even though he was gone now. Then, as she started fathering up the contents of the box, she saw a picture of herself amongst the things strewn across the floor. Then another, then another, before she caught on to the fact that everything that had fallen out were pictures of her, throughout her life. Picking one up in her hand, she stared at it in disbelief as she called out to her uncle. “Uncle Sam? Uncle Sam...come here!”

She heard footsteps pounding down the hall, the speed and the heaviness of them indicating that her uncle was running to her, before he came to a screeching halt in front of her. “Harley? Are you okay? What’s wrong, what happened?”

Looking up from where she was knelt down on the floor, she held up one of the pictures for her uncle to see. It was one of her when she was just a baby, taken in the kitchen of the house she’d shared with her dad. There was a cake on the table in front of her, her chubby little baby hands playing in the icing and making a mess. But that wasn’t what had caught her attention, it was the man who was holding her in the picture. She was sitting on the lap of Dean Winchester, laughter written across his face as he watched her; and when she had looked closely at the man she had seen a look in his eyes as he looked at the little girl in his arms. He had been looking at her as if she was the only person there; as if she was the best thing he had ever seen in his life. “What is this? Where did these all come from?”

“That...that’s from your first birthday. Where did you get it from?” Squatting down next to his niece, Sam looked at what was in her hand, before looking around at the pictures that were scattered all around the floor. “Well, I’ll be damned. I didn’t know he still had all of these.”

“What are they, Uncle Sam? Where did he get them from? Did he take them when we left my dad’s? I’ve never seen half of them. I don’t remember my dad having this many pictures of me.”

“These weren’t Bobby’s, Harley. They were all Dean’s. Some of them he got from Bobby, like the school pictures. But, most of them he took himself. When we’d come by to visit. He said he might not have been there to raise you, but...he at least wanted to see his daughter grow up. Even if it was only in pictures.”

“He...he did? He wanted to see me grow up? Wanted to know about my life?” Harley bit her lip as she looked around at all of the pictures, trying to process what she was being told. Dropping down to the ground in shock, she looked through all of the memories of her life. Taking in a deep breath, she couldn’t keep the tears from coming as everything came crashing down on her all at once. All this time, she’d been carrying so much anger towards Dean. She had assumed that he’d just dropped her off and never looked back. He had told her that wasn’t the case but she hadn’t believed it, not really. It wasn’t until she was confronted with solid evidence that she was able to see the cold hard truth. Dean had always wanted her, he had always cared about her. If she had just given him a chance, she might have been able to have the relationship with him that they’d never gotten to have when she was little, and now it was too late.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s been a year since the defeat of Dick Roman. Dean is back from purgatory, but a lot of things have changed in his absence.

It had been a year since Dick Roman had been killed. A year since Dean Winchester had disappeared into oblivion. A year since Sam had taken Harley back to Sioux Falls to live with Jody. Things were so different than they had been a year ago. Sam had finally found a normal life, one he was happy in. He had a good woman, a house, even a dog. He had kept his promise to come visit his niece, though more often than not he was coming because Jody had called needing his help. Even so, things were going good. So, he hadn’t expected to get a phone call with a voice on the other end of the line that he hadn’t heard in a year.

 

The entire drive from Texas to Minnesota, Sam’s brain never shut off. All he could think was that this wasn’t real, it couldn’t be happening. How was his brother alive? Where had he been? What the hell was he going to tell Dean about what had been happening over the past year? So much had happened, much of it his brother wasn’t going to be happy about, where was he going to start? 

 

Walking into the cabin he’d shared with his brother and his niece, Sam barely had time to get his bearings straight before he was being tackled to the ground and having holy water poured on top of him. Leave it to Dean to go a little bit overboard. He supposed, given their lives, it made sense. Still, he was glad when the formalities were over and he was finally able to say hello and greet his brother properly.

 

The happy family reunion, however, didn’t last long. Dean brought up the fact that he couldn’t reach Sam on any of his phone numbers and Sam had had to tell him the first thing that had changed over the course of the year. That he had quit hunting. It had gone over about as well as Sam had expected it to, which didn’t exactly bode well for how he was going to take the rest of what Sam had to tell him. Maybe he’d just keep a few details to himself, for as long as he could, there was no point in making an already bad situation even worse. For the time being things could stay on a need to know basis and, right now, Dean didn’t need to know.

 

Sam watched with dread as Dean pulled out the box with all of their own phones in it, going through and listening to the increasingly desperate voicemails from Kevin. The look on his face with each one got more and more dark, there was no mistaking just how pissed off he was. “He was our responsibility and you couldn’t answer the damn phone.”

 

“Okay, I get it, I messed up. But, we’ll find him and fix it.”

 

“You’re damned right we will.” Dean tossed the phone at his brother as he stomped over to the fridge to grab a beer out of it. “After we get Harley. I’m assuming you didn’t bring her until you knew it was safe. So, where’s my daughter at? Nearby motel? Does she know why you’re here.”

 

“Um, about that.” Sam took in a deep breath as he looked at his brother, trying to brace himself for the explosion he knew was about to come. “She’s not with me. She doesn’t even know I’m here. She’s...been with Jody for the past year.”

 

The tension in Dean’s shoulders became even more obvious as he stiffened at his brother’s words, before slowly turning around to face him. If the look in his eyes had been angry before, it was downright furious, now. “I’m sorry. What?”

 

“She...she’s with Jody. I took her there, after you disappeared. I...didn’t know what to do with her. So, I did what I thought best. Gave her stability. Something neither of us ever had.”

 

“You…” Dean closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he tried to compose himself and keep from losing his cool. “You left her. Your niece. MY daughter. You just left her.”

 

“I didn’t just leave her. I’ve gone to see her, as much as I can. It’s not like I just dumped her on Jody’s doorstep and never went back. She’s been doing good, Dean. She’s on the honor roll. You’d be so damned proud of her, Dean.” It wasn’t a lie, Harley was doing well, it just wasn’t the whole truth either. She may be doing well in school, but she had also taken it upon herself to start hunting on her own. That was the main reason Sam had been in her life as often as he had been, Jody called him on a fairly regular basis to come help his niece before she could get hurt. Eventually Dean would need to be told, but Sam didn’t think now was the best time to bring it up.

 

“You LEFT, her Sammy!” Dean roared as tossed his beer bottle across the room. Sam flinched as it hit the wall, shattering and sending beer everywhere. “Just when she needed you the most, you bailed on her. She’d just lost her dad, again. She lost...well, I doubt she cared much about losing me. But, you were all she had left. You’re her uncle, her family, and you just ditched her. I should have been able to trust you with her. It’s one thing that you just flaked on Kevin, but you flaked on my daughter!”

 

“Dean, it wasn’t even like that. I told you, I didn’t just walk away from her. I’ve been going to see her, I’ve been talking to her on the phone.” He’d known his brother wasn’t going to take this news well, but he hadn’t been planning on having to deal with his when he’d made the decision.When he’d left Harley with Jody, he was doing what he’d thought best in the situation. He had honestly thought Dean was gone for good, that he wouldn’t ever see his brother again. “This isn’t as bad as you’re making it out to be.”

 

Dean just held up one hand, indicating that his brother needed to stop talking, as he turned and walked towards the door of the cabin. “Get your ass in the car, Sammy. We’re going and getting my daughter.” 


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a year of being gone, Dean is finally going to be reunited with his daughter. But, how will Harley take his return? Will she be happy? Will she be upset? Will she even care? 
> 
> A/N: This is it, guys, the final chapter in this series. I can’t believe I got here, I’ve never finished a series before! A lot of my success comes from all of YOU! The feedback, knowing people were reading and appreciating my story kept me going even when I thought I wasn’t going to make it. There is a sequel of sorts in planning and if you enjoyed this story, I hope you will stick around for it!

The drive to Sioux Falls was a quiet one, neither man in the Impala having much to say to one another. Dean was still furious to find out that his daughter had been abandoned by the person she was closest too, just when she needed him the most, and Sam was remaining silent because he knew anything he said was not going to be met well by his brother. Hours passed as they headed down the road, sometimes driving a little faster than what the speed limit technically allowed as Dean was trying to get to Harley as fast as he possibly could. The only sound echoing through the car was the steady hum of the engine and the sound of the pavement passing beneath the tires. 

 

It was late in the day, the sun dipping low in the sky and casting an orange glow over the earth when the brothers finally pulled into the familiar driveway. Still not a word was said between the pair of them as they climbed out of the car and headed up the walkway to the front door. Dean had called ahead to warn Jody they were on the way, not wanting to give her too much of a shock when he showed up on her doorstep after having disappeared a year ago. He had Sam  speak only long enough to verify that it was in fact him, not some monster trying to pull one over on her, then asked her to not say anything to Harley about him being back. He didn’t know how she was going to take the news, or even where he stood with her, and he’d prefer for her to find out in person from him.

 

The door swung open almost as soon as he had knocked, Jody must have been standing at the window watching for them, and Dean quickly found himself being pulled into the woman’s tight embrace. She held onto him for what felt like an eternity before pulling back, holding him at arm's length as she scanned him from head to toe. He wasn’t sure if she was trying to make sure he was okay or trying to convince herself that it was really him standing on her doorstep. Either way, she must have been satisfied by what she saw because she once again moved in to hug him tightly.

 

“She’s going to be so happy to see you, Dean.”

 

“Yeah, well...I don’t know about that. We weren’t exactly on good terms when everything happened.” That was the part that scared him the most. Things had still been strained between him and his daughter, the disagreement over Bobby having never been truly cleared up before Dean had unwillingly been torn out of her life yet again. For all he knew, the teen had been glad to see him go and wouldn’t want to accept him back into her life now or ever again.

 

“You’d be surprised. A lot can change in a year.” Jody gave him a reassuring pat on the back before turning to Sam and moving in to hug him. “And you. It hasn’t been quite as long since I’ve seen your face, but...it’s been awhile.”

 

“Yeah, I know. I was just...busy, I guess?” Sam dipped his head in embarrassment, knowing he should have come by sooner to see his niece. It had been a few months, longer than it normally was between his visits, and he knew that any excuse he gave was weak at best. “How’s she been doing?” 

 

Jody frowned slightly as she turned and looked towards the back of the house. She wasn’t sure how much Dean had been told about the past year and she didn’t want to say more than she should for fear of upsetting him, he had enough to deal with right now without worrying about what his daughter had been up to in his absence. “She’s….well, not much has changed since the last time you were here. I’m just not sure of how to get through to her.”

 

“Well, we’re here now, so she’ll be coming with us. Hopefully that will set her straight some. Having both of us back should help. After all, half of the shit she was pulling was because of everything that happened. Getting back to normal will be good for her.”

 

Dean looked between the two people standing in front of him, a deep frown on his face. It would seem he had missed a lot over the past year, all of it involving his daughter, but nobody seemed to inclined to tell him what was going on. “Um...anyone wanna fill me in here? What’s been going on with my daughter?”

 

Jody and Sam exchanged a glance between the two of them, neither one wanting to be the one to break it to the eldest Winchester that his now seventeen year old daughter had been sneaking out of the house on a regular basis to go on hunts. Both of them had tried to stop her and tried talking to her, to convince her not to go down that path. Or at least to wait a few years until she was older and even then never to go on her own. But Harley had inherited the Winchester stubbornness gene and wouldn’t listen to them, always insisting that this was the only way she felt close to the two men she had lost in her life. Before either Jody or Sam could say anything to Dean to try and explain the situation, they were interrupted by the sound of a voice echoing down the hallways.

 

“Jody? Did I just hear Uncle Sam? What is he doing here? You didn’t call him about that salt and burn I did, did you? I told you I’m fine! I didn’t get hurt that ba-” Her sentence was cut short as she turned the corner and took in the sight of the three figures standing in front of her. It felt like the wind had gotten knocked out of her and she had to fight to even take a breath when she saw Dean there, standing in the middle of the living room. For a moment she was frozen in place, her eyes wide like a deer caught in the headlights as she tried to process what she was seeing. “Dad?”

 

Before Dean could say a word, or even registered that his daughter had just called him Dad for the first time ever, he was nearly knocked off his feet as a blur of blonde hair came running towards him and launched herself into his arms. He felt her wrap her arms around his neck, clinging to him as if she was afraid to let him go, and he could hear the sniffling and gasping breaths indicating that she was crying. Of all the scenarios he could have come up with for how this reunion could go, this was not one he ever would have expected. Not after the way things had been left off between the two of them. He’d expected anger at best, the cold shoulder at worst, but he hadn’t expected her to seem so happy to see him. Wrapping his arms tightly around her, he laid one hand on the back of her head and ran it softly through her hair. “Yeah, kiddo, it’s me. Gotta say, I didn’t think I’d get this reaction from you.”

 

“Y-you were gone. I lost you. I didn’t...nobody knew where you were. I thought you were gone forever.”

 

“Yeah, I thought so for a minute there, too. But I wasn’t about to just give up on getting back to my girl. I never gave up on coming back to you, kiddo.”

 

Harley let out a strangled sob as she clung tighter to him. She’d really thought she’d lost him for good and she’d never see him again, never get to apologize for the way she’d treated him and acted towards him. “I didn’t get to say goodbye to you. I lost another dad and I didn’t get to say goodbye. And I had been so...so...awful and you didn’t deserve it. I wanted to apologize and I was going to and then you were gone and I didn’t get to and...I’m sorry, dad. I didn’t mean any of it. I was just being a brat and I shouldn’t have been. I promise, I won’t be like that anymore. Just...please don’t leave me again, dad, please?”

 

“Hey hey hey. Sh, don’t cry kiddo. It’s okay. I’m okay. Everything that happened before, it’s all water under the bridge. It’s all forgiven. I’m here now and I’m not going to leave you. I promise.” Dean gave her a tight squeeze and kissed the top of her head, trying to both reassure her that everything was going to be okay and also to calm her down. When she finally seemed to relax a little in his arms, he pulled back a bit and looked down at her. “Now...what were you going on about when you came in here? Something about a salt and burn and you getting hurt?”

 

Harley had the decency to look at least a little bit abashed as she looked up at her father wtih a sheepish grin. “ I’ve...kind of been hunting while you were gone.  Last week I had a vengeful spirit get the best of me. Nothing serious. Few bruises. Minor concussion.”

 

“You’ve...been hunting. By yourself?” A deep frown crossed Dean’s features as he looked first at his brother, who he’d thought he could trust with his daughter, and then at Jody, who had actually had the teen in her care. Of all the scenarios he’d thought he would come back to, this was not one of them.

 

Jody saw the look she was getting and threw her hands up in defense. “Hey, don’t look at me. I tried to stop her and tried to talk her out of it. Unfortunately, she’s as stubborn as pretty much every man in her family. Once she sets her mind to something, she’s going to do it whether she should or not.”

 

“It really wasn’t her fault, dad, don’t blame Jody. She told me not to, she tried to ground me...she even had Uncle Sam out here a lot trying to yell at me. But I did it anyway, I wasn’t about to give up. I thought, maybe, if I did enough hunts...if I talked to the right people...maybe I could find you.” She bit on her bottom lip softly, preparing for the ass chewing she figured was coming, and shrugged her shoulder. Even while she’d been doing it she knew neither of her fathers would approve of her hunting on her own, but she hadn’t cared. All she could think about was that maybe she could find her dad and get him back. That alone had been enough motivation for her and, given the chance, she wouldn’t change a single thing she had done over the past year.

 

Looking down at his daughter, Dean just sighed a little as he shook his head. He knew he shouldn’t have been too surprised, the kid was too much like him for her own good. Hunting was in her genes and he shouldn’t have expected any less. Reaching out for her, he pulled her back to him in a tight embrace. What was done was done, there was nothing he could do about it now, but he sure as hell could change how things were done in the future. “I know it’s not going to do me any good to tell you you’re not allowed to hunt anymore. But, from here on out, no more going at it alone. You’ve got  Sam and you’ve got me, and neither of us are leaving you alone ever again, I promise. We’re a team, a family, and whatever happens we’re all going to be in it together.”


End file.
